


Unhinged (AddisonandDerekandMark)

by AddisonAddek



Category: Grey’s Anatomy
Genre: Addison has issues, Angst, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Sexual Abuse, Conversations about Death, Cutting, Dark, Dark Addison Montgomery, Death, Delusions, Depression, Dubious Consent, Dubious Psychiatry, Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Extremely Dark, F/M, Fragile reality, Gen, Hallucinations, Happy Past, Infidelity, Loss, Marital Issues, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, OC death, Sad Derek Shepherd, Self Harm, Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, What is real and what is not, confused, dark future, erotic asphyxiation, fragile mind, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 81,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AddisonAddek/pseuds/AddisonAddek
Summary: What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.Twisted and Dark Addek.Addison/Derek/Mark#Maddek #Addek #Maddison





	1. 2005 : the morning in question — i do (but i can’t)

**Unhinged**

** _(_ ** ** _AddisonandDerekandMark)_ **

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**2005 : ** **the morning in question**

_ **i do (but i can’t)** _

-:- 

_"Even good marriages fail. One minute you're standing on solid ground, the next minute - you're not. And there're always two versions. Yours, and theirs. Both versions start the same way though; both start with two people falling in love. You think yours is the one that's gonna make it. So it always comes as a shock. The moment you realise it's over. One minute you're standing on solid ground, the next minute, you're not."_

_\- Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy 08x01_

* * *

In the dead of dawn in New York City, he lies awake, unmoving with his wandering mind on a whirlwind and the sounds of the world echoing around him.

He could stare at the ceiling for hours and hours on end and just ... _think_.

Stare and think. Stare and think. Stare and think, _think_, think ...

On most nights, the ceiling would be his blank canvas, tonight, though, it's his sleeping wife.

He could just stare at her for hours and hours on end too, counting the many moles she has engraved forever on her back.

Her clear complexity shines bright in the dark; she's all the light he ever needs. _Needed_. But now ... now, he doesn't know where to start counting or ... even, why - why he had started in the first place.

_Addison._

He once, many _many_ years ago, had actually spent the entire night - maybe even two or three or more since he probably had accidentally fallen asleep on the first few - documenting her every mole. From its size to its colour to its prominence. He doesn't know what it was but it just made him feel more secure, closer to her with the familiarity of every inch and every second of her flawless dermis.

_Addison._

While she found it slightly obscure of the fact that someone had been observing, staring and documenting her as she slept, he just couldn't help himself. He's a romantic in the most arcane of ways. Besides he's not just _someone - _stranger or stalker - he's _her_ husband.

He had counted them all, even had memorised them all. Numbers and placements. But now, he just can't seem to recall any of the tedious details.

_Addison._

Tonight was the first night in days - maybe it's been a week or two, he can't really remember that he had actually slept on his own bed, on a comfortable memory foam, on crisp and freshly pressed linens, on a bed that he shared with his wife. But somehow, tonight wasn't the same as he had remembered.

It feels unfamiliar. _New_. But not the good kind of new, not like the first night as newlyweds kind of new. It's as if the bed was on fire and that feeling of knowing he should jump out and run, run and never look back took ahold on him with a vengeance - he’s so very unhappy - but he also knows he can't leave ... her.

_Was it him or was it her?_

Something had definitely _changed_. In both of them. He's not pointing fingers. But after years and years of familiarity, his home and his wife, who were both once a constant, now seemed too foreign.

_Addison._

He feels even more dreadful and uncomfortable here, on their very very costly _($3,999) _Zenhaven natural latex memory foam mattress _("a $3,000 mattress is actually quite reasonable, Derek.")_, than he would at the hospital's flimsy one at the on-call. He's even feeling fatigued in his own home than he would at work. If Addison wouldn't overreact_ (like she always does with everything he says.)_, the hospital would be the best fit for him to call home.

Sadly, he have had blatantly expressed his discontent one too many times to her and he knew that had to really hurt.

_Addison._

She took every harsh word and nonsense from him like a champ, not allowing his mere eloquence crush her. She've mastered the art of control. Sometimes he wishes he doesn't know her so well, so well like he knows the back of his hand, since he knows whenever she has _that_ look on her face, the look that held no emotions and where the only thing she does is blink, he knows she's wounded.

She's hurt.

He's hurt her.

But of course, one can only take so much, and she too would lash back at him every now and then which almost always ends up in one of them leaving. After all, just like him, she's not made of steel.

_Addison._

The longest they haven't spoken to each other was a little over three weeks. Not an utterance at home and definitely not at work. And if it was of dire need of them to communicate at the hospital, they always _always_ know to be civil. But always, at the end of most of their feuds, it was her who ends up apologising.

“I’m so sorry, Derek,” she would whisper and he’d look at her then, tear tracks smearing her cheeks and almost instantly, out of guilt, remorse, he’d motion to soothe her as his fingers slide into her hair and gently rub small circles on her scalp. He’d hold her closer, tighter, so she’d feel safe in his arms, like she used to.

_I’m home, Derek - whenever I’m with you, in your arms, I know I‘ll always be safe._

“I’m - I know_,” _hewould whisper quickly into the shell of her ear, his slight breath pronounced in his urgent need to amend her frame of mind. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t blame you, Addie. You know that, right?”

He remembered that she only looked at him then. Her eyebrows were quirked in confusion, and she searched his eyes. _For what? Truth in his words? Doesn’t she trust him anymore? _Regardless, moments later, she had only blinked and her hand touched his face, and she shook her head softly.

“It’s fine,” a tear slid down her cheek and he had slid the pads of his thumbs gently over her cheeks. He cupped her face in his hands and brought her lips to his. Soon murmuring her name fervently, his hands in her hair and on her waist. When his tongue slipped between her lips and he finally tasted her, he sighed in contentment.

_Addison_.

He's stubborn and he knows that.

Sorry is the hardest word.

She's trying, trying to keep them afloat while he has pretty much given up on their marriage a long time ago.

_Why?_

She's really trying while he’s just not trying hard enough.

_Addison._

His wife, the beautiful redhead he met over a decade ago in medical school when they were both still considered to be the _babies_ of PS. It was their first year. He had just turned twenty-one while she was on her way to be becoming legal.

Their love story; it was simple and sweet.

It all started in their campus library where on a blizzard January afternoon, her bright red head of hair and creamy complexion beamed in perfection and for the first time since starting at Columbia University, he _noticed_ her.

As he watched the gusty winds blew icy particles in all directions, blanketing what was the Hudson River and peeking a glance at her, who had caught his eyes, an announcement was made to inform all the studious inhibitors of their ill-fate, that they were to be stranded until further notice. It was for their safety since all roads in, out and throughout the city were deemed unsafe.

It had all seemed so irrational. Perfect even. The question of what the universe had planned for him was answered at that second. Being stranded in a library together with her couldn't have been more of an obvious sign that maybe, just maybe, he ought to talk to her.

_His_ _fate_, he convinced himself.

So, he did.

He gathered his things and most importantly, his newfound courage and confidence and marched right up to the table where she had her eyes practically glued to her Molecular and Cellular Physiology textbook and MCAT past papers.

"Oh, that's easy." he stated, after reading one of the questions off her paper, "The limbic system includes the limbic lobe as well as the associated subcortical nuclei, located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the cerebrum. It is associated with emotional responses, which is largely housed in the limbic system, and it has a great deal to do with the formation of memories. The integration of olfactory information with visceral and somatic information as well."

She looked up from the many pages and for the first time, their eyes spoke in a linger.

There was a spark, a forth of a second long, and he knew she saw it too.

He told her about it later, she said she saw it too.

He can tell by the way she pursed her lips that she's impressed by his level of confidence and nonchalant way of getting to sit with her.

"Is this seat taken?"

She gave him a bright smile.

"It now is."

He extended his right hand to her, flashing a gleaming grin, "Derek. My name's Derek Shepherd."

Her dreamy blues drowned in his and her lips curled into a smile and she willing shook his hand, tucking a lock of red behind her ears.

"Addison Montgomery."

_Then_ \- he knew she was going to be his wife.

_Now_ \- he's not so sure of that decision. Or what they’re event doing.

He's forgotten why he married her eleven years ago.

It's unfair. To both of them. Mostly her. But him, too.

He doesn't remember why he loves her. But he just does.

He knows he still loves her.

They're both so fucking unhappy and tired of arguing every single day. At least he is. He sometimes thinks she seeks the adrenaline of a fight.

If he was asked on that cold afternoon who'd he want to spend the rest of his life with, he'd say her name in a heartbeat.

_Addison._

If he was asked on that cold afternoon who's the one person that brings him joy and happiness, he'd say her name without a second to spare.

_Addison._

If he was asked on that cold afternoon where he thinks his marriage will be in eleven years, he'd say on a path to happily ever after, along with their little army.

But those questions were never asked so those_ answers _were never heard and he can now honestly say that he _would_ _have_ chosen her all the way.

_Would have._

But it's been eleven years of matrimony and now, they're both on polar opposites.

_Literally._

She's _cold_, he's _hot_.

They, Addison-and-Derek, once had similar, if not the same goals - to be the best of the best, to be number one, to be the doctors hospitals run to. It was _that_ that fuelled their passion, but now, she has changed.

Or maybe it is he who has. But then again, she’s seemed to lost all motivation. In anything, really. She just doesn’t care to care anymore.

He doesn’t know this version of Addison. This Addison who wakes up, goes to work, comes home, and then, repeat.

_Addison_

He raises his arm to reach out for her, her bare back that is facing him, but he can't. _Unreachable_. He can't reach her.

Perhaps, he doesn't want to. Or he's not trying hard enough. Maybe he just doesn't even care to try. Or they're just too far apart, much like their marriage.

_Mmmmm_

She wants something he cannot share with her anymore and that is time. Time is money, after all. He's a man on a dire mission, he needs to focus on his career. It's imperative of him to become Chief in the near future, five years from now, maybe even top as the youngest in the business, because this ambition and dream of his_ (they do come true.) _doesn't last forever. His career doesn't and wouldn't wait for him while his wife, on the other hand, does and would.

_But why couldn't she just understand that?_

Time is of the essence.

The only way for him to accomplish what he was meant to accomplish on this planet was for him to be at the hospital, to be away from her, to not give her the time she so desperately craves.

They're in constant disagreement to literally anything and everything. They bicker and argue about the most nonsense and mundane of things. That's what they're really known for by all their colleagues and friends. _Everyone_ _knows_. It was obvious. One don't need sight to know where they were headed. Everyone knows where they were marching to, but they don't. They don't know anything because they're in denial

Just yesterday morning, after flying back from Chicago where he was asked to perform an endoscopic endonasal surgery in removal of a craniopharyngiomas on a young child, as she was leaving for work and as he sees her to the door, she wasn't too pleased with the way he had dumped his bags by the door and being the sleep deprived doctor that he was, he exploded. That in turn, began their long silence until tonight that is.

* * *

The air choked with tension. Impending silence. But both of their brilliant minds were raising as they sat in bed, right next to each other with a distance that stretched further than the Great Wall, and supposedly reading whatever they had just snatched off the bookshelf.

If it wasn't for the fact that they weren't speaking to one another, she would've asked him to stop inhaling so much since he literally seemed to be hogging all the oxygen in the room. Leaving her to choke on whatever deathly was in the air.

She took a sip from her mug of camomile and went back to reading the book in hand, catching the sight of her husband in her peripheral view.

He has been on that exact same page since he crawled into the covers next to her. Not even a flip of the page was made on his part. He simply stared into the book, his loud breaths were really the only sounds in all the silence. She knows he's not reading but instead, thinking. And can only hope it's nothing too drastic.

The evening breeze lifted the page of her book before settling it back in its place, then advanced to caress the locks of her hair. He watched her as she watched him not so discreetly. Addison inhales deeply, enjoying the fresh scent of foliage travelling alongside it. The night is peaking shyly above the tops of the trees outside, preparing to cast gusts of winds over the garden, but, for now, the air remains pleasantly warm.

She pulled his reading material away from his hand and placed it atop the bedside table.

”Addison,” he said in more surprise than irritation, “I was reading that.”

The hand that took his journal returns almost immediately, gently enveloping Derek’s. Her fingers slowly interlace with his, thumb stroking the inside of his palm. “I know,” she said and brought her hand to her lips and kissed it ardently while sitting next to him.

He silently hummed in appreciation, savouring the tingles of warmth sprouting under his skin. He was ready to retrieve his hand, but she continued to keep it close as more kisses followed.

“Yes?” he said when he finally met her adoring stare fixed on him.

“It‘s nothing,” she said then, nimble fingers working their way under his shirt.

”Addi-” he almost stopped her then, but he didn’t, couldn’t as she continued to awake his exhausted body at a leisurely pace, warmth spreading beneath the touch of fingers, the vibrations within him now turning into a symphony of pleasure.

“Can I do something for you?” he questioned her still, for some reason enjoying the tease.

“Have I ever needed a reason to kiss you?” she retorted and sealed her words with another press of lips against his skin.

“Yes,” his smiles widened, and his hand moves from her, fingers brushing against her lips and cheek, slowly tracing its lines.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he murmured into her mouth.

Her breath hitches audibly against his.

“Only if you _want_ to.” her challenge drew his lips to hers like a magnet, his eyes met hers and he watched her closely. Her breathing quickens. She’s much too desperate tonight. But his fingers then tilt her chin and he leaned forward to kiss her. A brief brush of his lips to start, fleeting tease of a kiss soon turning into a proper one, deep and fervent, as his mouth lingers on hers.

Addison put her hands on either side of his face, pulling him closer as everything around them fades away; she sank forward in his arms, welcomed fire igniting within him, her, making her pliant and languid. Her fingers quiver as the warmth expands outwards, radiating with pleasure. 

When he finally pulled away, she inhaled sharply, suddenly remembering what it is to breathe. She can feel her skin glowing with heat, no doubt visible through a blush on her cheeks; her lips are still parted as she strives to quiet her thumping heart.

She arched her chest and took his hand, guiding it between her legs to the spot that desperately demand his attention. 

“Please.”

It’s called familiarising_ their passion. Or trying to, at least._

* * *

_What have they done?_

Their relationship has gone from bad to worse since then. _Beyond the_ _point of no return_. He doesn't want it to be the darn truth but it was.

Sex couldn't even save them from their drowning legal union anymore, like it used to. Sex was once their _saviour_. Sex was the only way they could reconcile, pretend and forget. Hot sex after a particularly bellicose day was their thing. Now, not so much.

As he watched her sleeping, counting the rise and fall of her breaths, he so desperately wants to go back to where the point of their impending doom, failing marriage, began.

_Was it when he missed their anniversary for the first time six years ago? And almost all anniversaries after that?_

_Or maybe it was his absence in many and most Christmases, birthdays and Thanksgivings?_

_Was it when he kind of, sort of implied that it was her fault why, after almost a decade of trying to have kids, they still weren't pregnant?_

He really doesn't know when it all started but he'd really like to turn back time and find a way to take back all those hurtful words he used to say.

_It's his fault, he's the reason why they're failing._

In realisation that maybe, just maybe that...

Suddenly, this house that he shared with his wife was closing in on him, seizing all his air supply. He doesn't want to be here anymore.

_No! He really doesn't!_

He has to go somewhere, anywhere really. Maybe the hospital since that's the one a place where he can be himself.

It was a place of tranquility.

_Happiness_...he just wants to be happy again since now, he definitely isn't.

_Why?_

He doesn't know why.

He needs to void his mind of false thoughts and the hospital is his cave, his escape. Right now, he has basically exhaust himself with thoughts of his wife. He has done enough thinking about Addison in one night than he ever had in the last couple of years.

_He always _used to_ notice her, how can he not?_

Although he would've gone to the hospital earlier in the evening, he wanted to show and prove to her that he's not absent like she claims he has been.

_She's not happy._

He really don't think he's been _that_ absent.

He comes home when he can.

He tells her he loves her.

He kisses her on the cheek every morning and every night and even sometimes at work whenever they cross paths.

_What else does she need?_

He've _noticed_ her enough.

_She's unhappy._

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he ran his hands roughly over his face, exhaling with a loud puff in contemplation of his next move.

_Should he stay and risk the awkward encounter that the morning holds to fill in the void and regret of last night?_

_Or should he just leave and meet her when he meets her at the hospital?_

He knows his decision.

With that he dragged his feet across the room, picking up the various articles of clothing that Addison, not too long ago, had tossed in the air.

"Derek?" her eyes fluttered open when she heard the squeak of the closet door, raising her hands to rub them.

Sleepiness still coating her voice.

Glancing out of the window for a brief moment, confused as to why he's up and that maybe the sun had already risen.

"Where are you going?" she asked, holding the comforter against her chest as she sat up and ran a hand through her tousled hair.

It was still very much dark outside.

"I didn't hear the phone or the pager go off."

She's a light sleeper, much lighter than he is. And would've instantly jump out of bed at the sound of a beep.

His soul almost crawled out of his skin at the faint echoes of her voice; startling him, feeling like he had just been caught in a lie. Turning around while buttoning his shirt, he's met with his wife's bright eyes. Eyes that once had him begging on his knees. Eyes that lured him to her. Eyes that, even in dim light, gathered a combination of surprise, confusion and maybe even a tiny linger of fear. He wondered the thoughts that were running through her mind; _Is he leaving?_

"I'm heading to the hospital. I gotta get an early start, Addison." he said, grabbing his grey coat off the hanger.

_Early start?_

He had already been away for almost a week and now, he couldn't even be bothered to stay with her for just one night.

_One night!_

She has never asked anything from him but to be a good husband.

What's worse is that he doesn't even look sorry or remorseful, he certainly doesn't care that he's leaving his wife for _something_ else. He doesn't care about anything else but the hospital. Not about her or their marriage. She's a doctor too, she knows the feeling but she doesn't make that her life, the only thing she breathes and lives for. Unlike he does.

The feeling of helplessness overtook her with rage and all she really wants is to scream at him. But she knows not to since that will only further fuel his conviction.

"Derek..." she began sweetly. After eleven years of marriage, she's somewhat the queen of manipulation. "Just come back to bed, okay? You haven't been home in weeks and...I miss you, Der." her lips curled into a smile and she knows she might look as though she's having a seizure with the copious amount of times she's been batting her eyes.

Her voice was soft and undemanding but he can hear the sheer desperation within.

"I got a lot of paperwork to tend to and patient files to review before surgery, Addison." he didn't even care to look her way, his tone sounding very much annoyed.

"Derek." she tried again. 

He's now pacing across their beige coloured room, his hands thrust deep into his hair; scratching and mumbling incoherently. 

"Addison, have you seen my briefcase?"

She didn't answer him, didn't even make a sound. Instead, crossed her arms over her chest, looking squarely at him.

_Does he really think she's going to look for his briefcase for him?_

Crouching down, he yanked on all the drawers of the chest, slamming one after the other when his case still wasn't in sight. "Addison...did you even hear me? Have you seen my briefcase?" he raised his voice.

_Anxious._

"Addison!"

She slammed her palms on the mattress, adamant to make her point, "Don't yell at me, Derek!"

_They're past the point of no return._

She heard him sigh and can tell that he's forcibly collecting himself. "You know what?...Just forget it!" 

_Just forget it?_

_Forgetting it_ was what they've always been doing and that hasn't even gotten them to forget. _Forgetting_ _it_ hasn't been getting them anywhere, instead drifting in a sea of nothingness.

"I'm not doing this with you right now!" he pulled himself to his feet.

His tone was cold and expressionless. 

"And what exactly may that be, Derek? What are _WE_ doing? Please! Enlighten me!"

_This really is their final threshold._

He doesn't know.

_They're past the point of no return, where would they even go back to, if they weren't?_

Shaking his head, "Now is not the time, Addison." he turned away, marching for the knob.

_When is?_

His heart was beating wildly and he stopped just as he twisted the doorknob. By the way his chest was rising and falling, he too isn't content with whatever they were doing at the moment. 

_Beyond the point of no return._

She's breathing hard, and her hands quivered slightly when she flung her hair out of her face, "When is it the right time, Derek? Never mind! I don't need you to answer that! You know what - Great! Go! Just! Go! Leave like you always do, Derek!...I know it's so hard for you to be here with me! Trust me, I get!" she didn't even bother to hide the sarcasm, "...for just one night, Derek...that's all I'm asking of you..." she shook her head and turn over on her pillow, burying her head in it. 

_They're past all thoughts of right or wrong but she has one question; how long should they, two, wait, before they're one again?_

"Addison..." he studied her curled poise draped under the covers, listening to her breathy pained cries. Contemplating whether he should comply and just stay, he exhaled deeply, "I'll see you at the hospital."

He just has to go.

She let out the deep sob she was holding back, breaking the skin on her knuckles with her teeth as she bit into them when the thought of him staying burst into flames.

They're beyond the point of no return and turning back to a time when they were content with one another wouldn't do them any justice. The real lingering angst will always and still be there; present and unfixed. It wouldn't be back to the way it used to be. They wouldn't be able to repair who they've both become. All of their games of make-believe is coming to an end and the bridge, that is their marriage, has been crossed through unsteady waters, now all they can really do is stand and watch it burn.

They've passed the point of no return.


	2. 2005 : the night in question (1) — every day a dying day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Unhinged**

_ **(AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**2005 : the night in question ** **(1)**

_ **every day a dying day** _

-:-

_"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."_

_\- John Green, Looking for Alaska _

* * *

She wanted to breathe, and he did too.

They are the same hard liquor burning down your throat, to your core, and to your brain. The same wayward souls.

They are both fucked up. Not that much, though. Just well enough for them to know how much better their lives could be if they weren't themselves.

They are both a little dead inside. And she likes that. She likes the company because then she wouldn't feel as alone and unwanted anymore.

They are the same difference.

She also likes to tell herself that they're nothing alike, the two of them. But then, she always realises she's only fooling herself a half second after she mistakenly denies their likeness.

She knows, she always knows they shouldn't ever be within ten feet of each other, because, as it happens, they always end up tied together somehow sooner or later. And it's easy, it's fun, he gets her like no one has ever and ... her shackles comes up and she's not herself anymore.

Because she will always be inevitably drawn to him, to the kindred spirit she sees in him that makes her dream of what-if, of who she wishes she could be.

Without pain and fear and mistakes. Because with him, they all wouldn't matter.

Problem is, she doesn't even know who she is without all those contributors anymore.

Pain causes anger and fear causes drama.

Derek, the cause of her _pain_ and the _fear _thathe'd lose interest, attraction in her.

Maybe he already has.

She's smiling right now as she sits at her vanity brushing her hair, trying to stop torturing herself with mundane memories and get herself ready for her dinner with her husband (_a date, if you will, a very rare occurrence these days_.) - the woman in the mirror, her smile looks troubling, concerning, doesn't reach her eyes - but the light inside her is slowly dying.

_Deceit. Betrayal. Forlorn._

Or it probably already has.

_Probably_.

The way a candle dies has always amazes her. It shines, then it melts, then drips, drips until all that is left is a hardened puddle.

It sounds like her - how she feels, how she is inside.

She's a candle.

_Would anyone pity her?_

_Does he pity her?_

She wonders if he knew, if he knows, if he pities her.

_Maybe._

Because why else would he be at her home more times than her own husband has this past year.

_Is it because he feels responsible?_

Her dear husband did kind of, sort of _mentioned_ whilst in a heated argument that he only asked her to marry him because his best friend had put that idea in his head.

But then, you know, no one actually means what they say when they're angry, especially if your wife's been a nagging bitch.

_Right?_

She's the dying candle and he's the wind that's slowly blowing her flame away. All it takes is one last huff.

Pressing her fingertips to her lips, she feels the same overwhelming feeling of nerves and duress growing in her belly - in fact, it feels like it has worsened, magnifies the feelings she felt when he locked lips with her.

_Again_.

She had been starving for over a decade, she didn't know it until three months ago.

The strength of his arms will always be nearly enough to wash away any doubt she's ever had concerning their ever-evolving relationship status.

_Pretend. Act. Try._

She traded in one secret for another when Derek's little sister walked in on them. _Kissing_. Just kissing. Then again, if Amy hadn't caught them, who knows what would have happened.

_Is she that easy?_

And when she went home to her husband that evening and kissed him a _hello. _He didn’t notice, didn’t say a word, didn’t taste another man, his best friend against her lips. And she realised that it is very possible to hate herself a lot more than she already had.

And no matter how hard _she_ tries - _they_ both try, they cannot hate themselves into being a good person.

She clutches her wrist in her own hand, adding pressure, adding intensity, adding heat, just like he did.

The woman in the mirror - she looks particularly overcome ... ruined. Her smile has faded, fallen, _only_ _God knows,_ somewhere on the bathroom floor.

Keeping it up is tedious and tiresome, takes time and energy she does not have.

She remembers when his hand curled around hers for the first time, rough fingers sinking into her white, porcelain skin. Her heart seized to beat in her chest at the touch of his fingertips.

There was fire. There was blood.

There were tears in her eyes from the cold wind that whipped at their faces, the music from the party blared loudly behind them but it all just seemed so far, far off.

She gasped when her foot slipped on loose gravel and he caught her almost instantaneously, like a reflex, one large hand slipped around her waist, the other burned _marks_ on her wrist.

"_... Careful ..._"

Maybe it was the way he looked at her. Maybe it was the way he held her. Maybe it was the way he touched her. Maybe it was the way he sounded - the low gruff of his voice had butterflies erupting deep in her.

Somehow, she found herself locked in a trance and she cannot comprehend why. Completely wrapped in his grasp, her arms were around his neck and she could feel the rapid beating of his heart against her own.

Maybe that is the issue in hand, he's always here, there, present and ready to catch her whenever she's falling.

_Figuratively and literally._

She purses her lips, runs her fingers through her hair, dark and damp from a shower, whispering between her shoulder blades.

_Why is she already feeling this so deeply?_

This isn't how she thought her life would turn out to be.

Married to one. Dreaming about another.

_Love, lust. Lust, love. Is there even a difference?_

She was twenty-three when she first kissed him. The scandal of it all ignited a fire in her - adrenaline, she was fuelled by him.

And she didn't stop him.

And maybe she didn't want to.

But she knew what she was doing was wrong. She was playing with fire that night because Derek was just in the other room, barely even, since they were right on the second-floor balcony at the Vanderbilts' residence. 

The scruff of his jaw scratched her cheek as he pulled away and when she looked into his eyes, saw that he was not at all her boyfriend, she was instantly hit with guilt and regret.

The thing that just happened with her boyfriend's best friend, the consequences of it, his reaction when she tells him, _if_ she tells him - it all came crashing down in a panic, reality, possibility hit her hard and her head spun wildly. 

She was sure to apologise before bidding to move past him. She needed to leave, needed to get away from him, away from this mistake. "Sorry. I, I can't —"

"Addison, wait."

Unfortunately, he was not so quick to get rid of her, as she was of him. He maintained his firm grip on one of her arms, pulling her back towards him. "Let me explain."

The tip of his nose was red, his cheeks too - she doesn't know why she remembers those details.

"_Mark_ ..."

"_Red_. Please.”

"What do you want from me?"

There was a crack in her tone, she heard it and she knew he heard it too because not a second later, he released her arm.

But she didn't make her move to run back into the house.

_Why?_

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he cupped his hands together and blow into them before shoving them back into the pockets of his jacket.

They both stared up at the sky and the moon and the stars, at the darkness with a few streetlights being their only source of light, and the deafening silence between them was sucking them into oblivion.

That is, until he shifted in his place, moving to stand in front of her. "You know, it's funny ... when you look at someone through rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags," he smiled, reaching up to smooth the lines where her brows had pull together. 

Her heart sunk when his eyes flitted to hers, blazing even in the darkness.

"What I'm saying is," he paused and she watched the way his eyelashes meet the top of his eyelid as he breathed out heavily, blowing clouds of smoke out into the air. "I really _like_ you, Addison ..."

A deep blush formed on her cheeks, her mouth turned down in a frown and she adamantly shook her head. "What? No, you don't. No ... you can't." 

"Do you actually believe that?" 

Her throat swell up at the sound of such sadness in his voice and she shrugged. "I don't know. You're — You do this, Mark, all the time. I see you string girls along — a dozen all at the same time, then break their hearts ... This kind of stuff — the emotional stuff — _love_ ... it's not your thing.”

He was quiet at first before he chuckled - it still didn't mask the defeated look he had on his face. "Well, I guess me explaining it's different with you wouldn't change your mind. I probably shouldn't have said anything —"

"You think!" she exclaimed harshly and slapped him on the shoulder with a force she was not expecting.

He simply stared at her.

_Hurt. Crushed. Shocked._

There could've been tears in his eyes, she wasn't sure.

"Why did you have to tell me that?"

Her words had scorned him, scarred him to ever love again, a very very intoxicated Mark told her that years later. And what's great about that is that he doesn't even remember that he did, still doesn't, which means she can continue on pretending on her own terms.

She huffs wordlessly and lowers herself down onto the bed she shares with her husband. _Flannel sheets_. The dress she'll be wearing tonight had been dry cleaned and pressed, laying pretty on the bed beside her. 

Her eyes scream at the ceiling, painting with regret - she doesn't need more of it, doesn't need to drown in any more grief.

She hates being alone with her thoughts because she always - _almost_ always ends up thinking about him.

It's a cynical cycle.

_(same. maybe subconsciously, she wants to be miserable.)_

Those words still echo through her head long after she's said it.

_You're ..._

Though they complete themselves a few months after the funeral.

She shuts her eyes when they begin to sting. Her chest feels raw, her heart cut open and bleeding.

Her husband hates her and she doesn't blame him.

_You're not here._

Three years ago.

_You're not here anymore._

Everything was effortless when he was here.

She loved him more than life itself.

He deserves life and to live so much more than she does.

She didn't know what triggered it. She never really knew. It could be anything, really, even the most little of things could set her off now, the most unrelated and insignificant. But she still remembers the day she had her first panic attack - one minute she was walking towards the nurses' station, calling out to her favourite nurse for a patient's chart, and the next, she saw a flash of something and then, she was huddled against a wall, crawling to safety and hands clutching her throat, her heart too fast a beat and her breath too quick.

”I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” she cried.

She thought she was having a heart attack. 

She was certain her heart was going to sprint right out of her chest.

Dimly, she sensed the nurse's worry as she ran over to her, her hands reaching for her, and a doctor that had been passing by was startled, jarred by the sight of her sudden crumpled form.

There were other voices too. Lots of them. People whispering. Doctors' curiosity. Gasps of concern.

She remembered she couldn’t see straight. Vision tunnelling.

A circle of drama and orders being shouted. 

_Doctor. Shepherd. Addison. Derek. Get. Surgery. Hurry. Okay. You. Are. Page. Happened. Is. What. Breathe. Mark. Down. Breathe. Relax. Calm. Sloan. Space._

Pairs and pairs of eyes, watching her intently and all she wanted to do was curl up in a closet and hide, as she used to as a child. Her lungs were too shallow to take in a breath and her heart felt like lead inside her. But then, there was Mark, his deep voice steady, calming and she vaguely heard him shooing everyone away. 

"Move it, people. Nothing to see here."

She remembers feeling so indebted to him at that moment that whatever fucked up things he had said and done to her over the years had officially seized to even exist.

"Addison, it's okay," he was telling her, "You're okay. Just take deep breaths. Slowly."

She pressed her forehead to her knees and focused on breathing, trying to remember how to fill her lungs all the way, but her mind kept leaping back to the day at the park and all the things she could’ve done differently.

"Slow breaths, Addison.”

She had this crazy idea that if _he_ was there he would be able to coax the oxygen back into her trembling body. "I want to go. I want to go home. I want to go home —" 

"What? What?" He couldn't understand her through all the tears and congestion and wheezing.

"I just want to go home," she hiccuped after every word.

"Okay."

"I want to go — go home, Mark."

"We'll go home," he whispered into her hair.

He drove her home that afternoon as approved by their Chief, then deposited her onto the sofa with a glass of water and a blanket while he retreated to the kitchen in the guise of making her something to eat when really, he was on the phone trying to get her husband to come home early.

_Aren’t you going to come home?_

_And why would I do that?_

_Addison — your wife._

_What about her?_

_Haven’t you heard?_

_I did. She had a panic attack. Everyone has panic attacks. It’s not that serious._

_Okay. So, you’re not only oblivious but also, an asshole. You’re coming home or what?_

_Is she breathing normally?_

_Yes._

_Is crying?_

_No._

_Is she okay?_

_Yes, but —_

_Then, I don’t see the point of us both being there._

_You really can be a fucking asshole, you know that. I’ll stay with Addison. And you — come home when you finally get off your high horse._

"Derek?" she asked.

"Still in surgery.”

He was lying but she nodded anyway.

"I'll, um, stay with you until he comes home."

It became a little easier to breathe, but she still kept her head bent forward, her back a defeated, sloping arch.

"Addie, everything will be okay."

Something came undone deep inside her, and she began to cry again. She was too beyond hopeless to really care anymore, but there was something almost surreal about the tears.

She really didn't know who they were for.

_Him. Him. Or him._

He crouched down in front of her and put his hands on her knees. "Addison ..."

She drew in a shaky, shuddering, hiccuping breath and forced herself to meet his eyes. She knew she looked terrible but it was hard to care when his face looked like that.

It was as if a veil had been lifted.

There was something deeply familiar about the way he was looking at her - the warmth in his eyes, the concern, the _love._

That was the face of the man she had been missing. Her husband doesn't look at her like that anymore.

Her body leaned forward without any real direction from her brain. She pressed her face into the crook of his neck and willed herself not to sob openly.

It took him a second, but then his arms were around her.

_(she was so tired.)_

He held her long and tight, no complaints.

His smell was deeply comforting, intoxicating. She liked the way it flowed into her body along with the oxygen.

She could breathe again.

She breathed deeply.

_(he'd caught again.)_

"I'm scared I'll forget his voice."

She is still scared.

She turns to her side, curls in on herself, and presses her forehead hard into the pillow. She doesn't see black like she wants to, she sees the day they laid him to rest.

_July_.

She purses her lips against the bitterness that swells through her chest, but they still quiver, her face contorts, screws and twists in pain as she sobs.

She hasn't forgotten his voice.

_Not yet and hopefully, not ever._

Her knees had buckled beneath her that morning and she landed solidly on the damp soil.

She couldn’t get over the fact - she couldn’t believe what she was doing and she still doesn’t.

It had finally rained. _Finally_. After weeks of the heat wave, New York City was finally raining again.

"He's going to heaven," she said to her husband, voice coarse with tears. She isn't one to be superstitious, not at all, but this one just stuck with her when she overheard such from an older woman at the funeral home.

Her husband knelt down beside her, his hands hard on either side of her face. "Addie ... of course, he is," he whispered, defeated.

There was something else too, a blink of an emotion in his eyes.

_Blame_.

He blames her.

She whispers his name now.

He left a mark that she wears proudly on her chest. Above her heart, to remind her that she feels the best when she's with him.

She can live with the torment of her life, can live with the years worth of reminders and words said slashed across her skin. She can live without her husband, without everything she loves about her old life, but she cannot live without her little boy.

Maybe she ought to take another shower so she can't tell if she's crying or not.

* * *

**. . . 1991 . . .**

* * *

"What would you do without me?"

"Find inner peace, attend classes without being stalked in the process, talk without being interrupt —"

"It was a hypothetical question," he says, rolling his eyes. She watches him lean back against the wall, shoving a hand into his pocket and she clutches her books to her chest tighter, waiting for him to explain himself now that they're both free from alcohol.

But she takes the initiative when it looks as though he wouldn't. "So, what is this, Mark?" she asks, treading cautiously, gesturing to the space between them. "Is it that you still ... _like_ me?"

His eyes widen, and she's pleased with his momentary panic. She can practically see his thoughts running a race in his mind and his jaw clenches in defense.

"Define _like_."

It's a simple command, but it was enough to fill her with a rush of ... _excitement?_

"You have a _crush_ on me," she states, marvelling at the assertion, and she lets out a little laugh under her breath,"And you've come to try and satiate it."

"I'm not —"

"Is it seeing something you can't have?" she eagerly persists, braving a step towards him, close enough to smell his cologne and the last remaining scents of his shaving cream.

At their proximity, he is quick to notice how warm and brazen she is. He quirks a brow, clearly surprised by her analysis of their situation. But before he could correct her, before he could clarify that he can very well make her his if he were to strategise the right way, she went on. "It's all one big challenge for you, isn't it?"

She sounds truly curious, her voice dropping low in the silent hall.

He thinks about her question again, considering his answer before responding.

He thought better of it. 

"What's this that you're always reading?" he asks, tapping the leather bound novel at the top of her pile of books.

She frowns at the quick change in subject, glancing down at the book.

"You always were a little nerd."

"Your insults aren't even slightly endearing, Mark."

"The book, Red," he insists. "Tell me."

She sighs, revealing the first aged page to him. "If you must know, it's The Art of War by Sun Tzu." 

He didn't miss a beat, quickly laughs a muffled chuckle, all the while a wide grin spreads on his face. "Of course it is." 

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's an ancient text on war, Addison," he smirks. "I just expected it to be —”

"What? Some moronic romance novel? I'm not twelve," she rolls her eyes, tapping her finger to the cover of the book. "It's a necessity. You of all people should know that medical school might as well be a battlefield."

"And what an adorable little dictator you must have been in your previous life," Mark muses.

She groans at him, irritated by his taunting. "Don't patronise me, Mark," but finally, she lets out a small sigh, allowing a tiny confession to slip. "My grandmother gave it to me when I was younger, before she passed away. It's a special edition. Only two were made in the year it was printed, and this —" She traces her fingers over some sort of scrawled message inside the cover. "— is one of them."

A strange look of revelation crosses his face then, his lips parting in recognition. "Really? I —" He cuts off when he sees Derek sauntering over to them with a chippy grin on his face, she turns around to see why the sudden change. 

Mark blanches when Addison shifts away from him, her eye line never reaching his before returning Derek's smile with a kiss. 

* * *

Sometimes she wishes life wasn't such a tragic labyrinth ... that she would remember what she had dreamt of at night so she'd have a traced path before her in the morning, that he wouldn't continually muddle with her mind whenever he feels is of his convenience ... that she could be strong enough to withstand his_ 'charm' _so he wouldn't always immerse himself so effortlessly into what is supposed to be her life.

When she was a little girl she believed in fairytales, dreamed of a dashing young knight to carry her away on his white horse into happily ever after.

The earliest memory she's had of the Captain had to be - well, there was a very brief moment in her childhood when her daddy would actually act like one and not the womanizer she now knows him to be. He used to sit her on his knee and read her bedtime stories, whisper that someday her prince would come along and make all her dreams come true.

"Someday, _Kitten_, you're going to meet the perfect boy and get married and have babies and make me the proudest grandpa in all the land. And if he hurts you, I'll kill him."

She would then spend the next ten plus years dreaming of the day her world of make-believe would be real.

And when she had lost all hope, Derek came into her life and she thought she'd finally found a prince - her prince - a beautiful boy with a strong passion and heat burning in his eyes and a special smile just for her. Derek, who said he would love her forever and take her on grand adventures and guard her heart and dreams. Derek, who made her feel safe and loved above everything else. She'd thought she'd found her happily ever after in his arms their first night together. With the stars shimmering above, she remembers grass scrapping the fragile skin of her spine, and strong fingers gripping her hips, hard, slick heat pulsing inside her. 

Then she was so sure he was going to be her husband one day.

And then Mark came along, crept up behind her with his games and taunts and unwanted remarks _(complements?),_ breathing excitement in her ear she wishes she had never heard, and all her dreams turned into a living nightmare. 

There were tears and regrets and her whispering against Derek's throat, "I'm so sorry, Derek. God, I'm so sorry …" But it didn't matter, doesn't matter, because her perfect prince was all wrong, his silver lining tarnished and chipped, his sparkle dimmed ... her happy ending shattered as quickly as it started. 

_When did her life become such a complex maze?_

_When did he equate to something that ached and yet hurt within?_

_When did her mind come to float around the idea of Mark?_

He pushed, and she shoved back, harder and harder until one of them would break.

She had hoped his _(Derek's)_ jovial and cheerful and kind manner would rub off on her.

But then again, she's got this gaping wide hole inside of her that nobody but he _(Mark)_ understands.

There is something fundamentally wrong her.

**xxx**

**  
**The sun is setting - slowly, surely, definitely.

High above the fading light, where the sun kisses the earth, the sky burns with prismatic _envy_.

It's a sky painted just for her, she like to think so.

Blinding beauty through unadulterated sunlight, she is fleeced like a lamb, watching in awe ... in wonder. Then, the stomping sounds of a coming thunder startles her, finding depth and height out in the stratosphere.

She should have known, she should have at the very least expected it, because it's that beautiful and precious and those are the things that don't last forever. Not even something as beautiful and innocent and precious as a child.

Sighing, the mug in her hands is the only thing that's keeping them from trembling. She can almost feel the weight of it all in her body - sinking, drowning, slumping.

She's in a daze ... as she is reaching, staring out the window.

It's fading away.

It's beautiful.

It's rare.

Because they live in Manhattan and super tall skyscrapers and architectures aren't ideal for watching sunsets, but today - today is _different_.

Today must be a sign.

And she'll interpret said sign as a positive.

A new start. A new beginning. A new _them_. 

_Unhurt. Unharmed. Untouched._

She's doing whatever possible to save their marriage.

She's trying. She shamelessly is. But nothing she has been doing seems to be working in her favour.

She even tried making him his favourite dinner for crying out loud, because _they_ say the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But everyone knows she cannot cook, including Derek. And as that backfired when he shouted at her that she's incompetent at doing anything right, they had another one of their infamous fights - yes, as in, it got physical. Then again, it was mostly her that had used hands and feet.

_(in his defense, she almost did gave herself third-degree burns, so his concern/outburst was substantiated and much appreciate because that meant he still cared about her.)_

But it wasn't enough, the assurance didn't last long.

She's trying to save them in the best way she knows how, because nothing is working anymore. Because once upon a time, most of their fights, whether massive or petty, ended with him pinning her to a wall, the couch, the bed, feeding the fire inside of her with the drape of his body until they were both left cooling in the embers.

Few things in her life were better than making up with Derek after a fight.

Their passion was always burning, so alive and vivid. The fact that their bad moments together could be just as rich as their best only reaffirmed how beautiful their relationship was to her.

Now, it's like he doesn't care, doesn't care to fight for her, for their love and marriage and for everything they went through together.

It's like he's given up on what they _have_ \- or what they had.

_All that history._

This dinner is all she has left. They'll talk and she'll tell him how she feels.

_Derek will be coming home tonight._

All she has is hope.

She's gotten herself all made-up and dressed in a red dress she bought especially for tonight.

It's not something she'd willing pick out of a rack at the store nor one that would be approved by Bizzy - off-the-shoulder, ample legs plus a slit that if she's not careful enough, it'd be her fanny to the wind.

But what else can she do.

She looks like Bloody Mary. Not the drink, though. A walking, living, breathing, barely functioning version of a bloody tampon. But it's okay because Derek loves her in red.

Because maybe he'll finally notice her.

* * *

**_. . . 1983 . . ._ **

* * *

It is often said that the most important lessons in life are learnt outside the classroom.

The painful truth about the state of a relationship, the ugly cost of challenging authority, the price to pay in tarnishing a reputation, the sad fact that life's colours aren't always rosy. 

Then, there are those who just refuse to accept these important lessons and that's because they simply want to teach a lesson of their own.

Addison, for the longest time, has always considered her life to be a steady stream of screwed up scenarios and alternate endings to the cracked film reel that is her expectations.

But expectations only feeds the frustration and expectations are recipes for pre-meditated resentments.

Mostly to one's own self, of course.

Because had her insolent tutee not cancelled their weekly appointment, then she wouldn't have to grace the Debevoise' with her presence at their wedding in the early summer of 1983.

Because had her boyfriend, Carter McGrath, known that she was going to make an appearance that evening, he would have steered clear of a certain seductive blonde.

Because had she worn her red Azzedine Alaïa rather than her blue Alexander McQueen, she wouldn't have had a wardrobe malfunction that needed to be fixed in an empty room (_or so she thought it was._).

Because had the day started as originally planned and had a wicked wind not swept through the city on that first day of summer, she would have never walked right into a _bare__ (literally) _disaster.

"Oh my God," she cries, her heart sinking and flaring as fast as lightning, blaring all at once. She's frozen, unable to pry her eyes away from her boyfriend and best friend, half-naked and entangled on one of the rickety bar-stools.

"I, I can't believe this."

The anger and the betrayal are welling up fast in her chest, too heavy to anchor her up right anymore.

_Her boyfriend and best friend._

It overpowers the all-consuming panic that still ripples in her with every breath, "You ... two ..."

And then, she's shaking her head vigorously, can't want to believe what she's witnessed, and backs away from the scene of the crime as they scramble to make themselves decent.

"Addie. Addie!" Lisa calls out, trying to catch up to her as quickly as she can, "Sweetie, it wasn't — we weren't — you have to hear me out. It's not what it looks like. I'm so sorry. Addison — wait, I'm really sorry. Please —”

Turning around, she pauses, looks at her in disbelief.

_Does she thinks she's that stupid?_

She knows what she had just witnessed. She wishes she didn't.

Maybe it'd be better not knowing.

Her best friend and her boyfriend.

"Sorry for what —" she snaps, "You know what, I can't talk to you — I, I can't even look at you right now. You're my best friend, Lisa. How could you do this to me?" she blinks back the oncoming pool of tears when she glances behind her ex-best friend, at Carter. "And you —" she points sharply.

"Addie — I made a _mistake_."

"A _mistake_?" she scoffs, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to rediscover her breath for the second time today, "What were you trying to put it in? Her purse?"

"Baby, I'm sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened."

She turns her back on them and buries a hand in her hair, digs her nails into her scalp.

She can't cry right now.

But she's done everything he asked her to do for him, given him whatever he wanted from her. He's her first for everything and that's supposed to mean something in their relationship. _Right?_ It's what a good girlfriend should do. She didn't want him to leave her just because she wouldn't give it up. It happened to Mindy and no boy even looks at her like that anymore and no girl wants to be seen with her.

"Both of you," she says with a deep sigh, her voice colder than she's ever heard before. A grave parallel to Bizzy. "Both of you are dead to me."

And then, she drags the scraps of her dignity from the floor - at least she tries to (_but she thinks there's none left, not even crumbs_.) - fleeing the room and pushing her feet back into the main ballroom, where the bride and groom are sharing their first dance.

She tries to follow along - happy, they all look so happy, all smiles and genuine contentment, and she wonders how amazing it'd be to feel like that. _Happy_. _Content_. So, she fixes her hair and pulls her lips into a semblance of a smile, trying to _pretend_ as though nothing had happened.

That's the secret to happiness, she's come to learn, pretending is easy, pretending is all she has to do, because eventually she'll forget she was even pretending in the first place.

But it's easier said then done tonight. And she feels ill when she hears their incriminating pitter-patter chasing after her.

"Addison."

She rolls her eyes, her throat ripples with a swallow that goes down hard and at that moment, something takes over her, something twisted and exasperated and her head spins when Lisa grabs at her arm.

"Addison, just hear _us_ out —"

"It wasn't enough for you, was it?" her voice rises then, gaining the attention of a few of the wedding guests.

She's drawing attention to herself, she knows, but she doesn't really have a care in the world right now because she's fuelled with adrenaline and rage. But if this isn't going to kill her right here and right now, Bizzy will, so she really needs to get a grip of herself and the tears that haven't yet, but surely will, fall.

_All well brought up women conceal their emotions. Emotions are frowned upon._

"You knew how I felt about Carter. You knew everything and you used it against me. First, you just had to go and tell _my_ mother about _my_ problem without so much as speaking to me first. You had to push me down so I'd permanently stay in your shadow," she shakes her head, recalling Lisa's guilt stricken face after she told Bizzy about her suspicious trips to the bathroom.

It had taken all of her false sincerity to forgive her for that. But this - this is way too much. She's totally over the line - no, she's so far past the line, she can't even see the line. The line is a dot to her.

"And you just had to have Carter too."

"No —"

"You take everything from me," she finally shouts, can't contain the outrage any longer, can't feel past the exasperation and agony, the pressure and torment of everything that comes with a broken heart.

"Addison, you have to calm down."

It's Carter pleading with her now. Guilt blooming through his features, remorse, but - no, no, he is the one who's making her feel this way. He's the one who's shattered her heart into a million pieces. His voice and movements, everything is just infuriating her even further and what's making her feel worse is the fact that he's still, even now, standing beside Lisa. His body gravitating towards her, like a magnetic pull, as if she is the centre of his fucking universe.

"Addi —"

And from there on, at her misfortune, everything went downhill - _unbeknownst to her at that time, of course_ \- because, on contrary to popular belief, the thing that happened that night is still up for debate.

She would insist what happened next was truly just an accident.

Because she had only meant to slap away Lisa's grip, maybe throw in a pinch in the process, when she tried to pull her aside and away from further making a scene.

Because how on earth was she suppose to know that the Debevoise' seven-tier cake would roll in just as she pushed her hand away.

It happened, though, and she may or may not have pushed her with a tad more force than needed.

She was angry and justifiably too.

_Right?_

Everything and everyone was in pin drop silence, even the pianist stopped and they all just watched and waited as Newton's second law of motion proved itself. She gasps in succession with the crowd, raising a hand to her mouth as all eyes turned to her in horror. 

Bizzy is going to murder her and no one is going to stop her.

_It was an accident._

It really was an accident. But somehow she thinks no one is ever going to believe her.

_Bizzy is going to kill her._

She feels like she's spinning but she don't think she really is. Everyone is still staring at her like she's an infestation that needs to be exterminated. Hers are flickering across the room, snagging on glimpses as Carter and the catering staff scramble to help Lisa up, who's now dressed in vanilla cake and swiping frosting from her face.

For a split second as she knows her life has officially ended, everything stills in the whirlwind of her mind, and then she's startling on Bizzy's fiery sea of rage in her view, her stony expression marching towards her.

She swallows back a small cry, wishing she could just crawl under a rock and never come out ever again.

"Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery," her mother hisses, heels echoing loud in the ballroom as she stomps over to her. Her features are sharp and blunt, absent of any emotion as she yanks her arm, not lightly at all, and tugs, dragging her away from the party while the crowd whispers.

"Mother, it was an accident."

_How was that dreadful girl raised?_

_Honestly, I'm so embarrassed for Beatrice. This behavior is unacceptable._

_I always knew she would go crazy._

_That's Archer's little sister. You know, that boy who crashed his father's car into a tree in the Hamptons last summer._

_Oh, my. They're all vile. Poor Bizzy. She's so lovely._

"Bizzy, I, I didn't push her. She slipped — It was an _accident_ —"

"Oh, you are a pathetic, _pathetic_ excuse for a human being, Addison," Bizzy says once they're away and out of earshot.

"Bizzy, you have to understand," she follows her mother into the grand hallway, trying her best not to stumble on her own feet, "Carter, he was cheating on me with Lisa. I just —"

"And you _just_ felt the need to embarrass me —" she interrupts, "— our entire family with your tantrum? Do you know what they'll say about _me_ after this? Those twits — Alma Hodge, Eleanor Williams — oh, they'll have a field day, the entire country club. You've caused irreparable damage, Addison."

"Bizzy," she persists, her voice cracking. "You have to see what she's doing. She's sabotaging me on purpose. This is what she wants. She's playing games."

"The only games being played are by children like you," Bizzy seethes, sinking her nails deeper into her arm with her every word.

She whimpers.

"I was perfectly fine with supporting you through your eating disorder _phase_ — but this ... you're more of a hindrance than you are worth. So, you better grow up to be something great, to make up for all the damage you've done."

"How can you say that, Bizzy?" she recoils from her mother at the insult, her hands trembling behind her back, "I'm your daughter."

"Yes, you are," she nods, her voice tight. "And you will be my daughter at Exeter." 

_Exeter_. Bizzy can't throw her away to boarding school _(basically juvenile detention for the elite.) _when she wasn't the one at fault.

"Mother, no, Bizzy, please, I'll apologise to the Debevoise. I promise —" 

"You will leave in August," her mother cuts her off calmly, and she bites at the insides of her cheeks, willing herself to not lose too much of her makeshift composure, "Your father and I have been discussing this for a while now and we think Exeter is what's best for you and _your_ future."

Shaking her head, she's both astonished and repulsed because for the first time in sixteen years, her parents made a mutual decision together. A conspiracy against her. "My future? I know what I want for _my_ future, Bizzy."

She's going to be a surgeon.

"I don't need your help in deciding _my_ future for me. I've been getting straight-As all my life. I have a perfect attendance. I'm in almost every club there is. I never get detention. I have never done anything wrong my entire life and now, one time, and it wasn't even my fault, I did not push her, and, you're exiling me to boarding school — No, I'm not going. You can't make me go!"

"Addison," Bizzy huffs out, exasperated, and she watches her steadily. "You will not have a future here, especially if you continue with that kind of behaviour — chasing after a boy who clearly doesn't respect you isn't worth —"

"Oh, and you think The Captain respects you?" she says, heavy with spite. Her mother's face is unchanged. "He's screwing his secretary and most likely yours too. He screwed nannies, housekeepers, chefs away — and not to mention, my French tutor. And it's all happening under your nose and we all know about it and _you're_ still sticking around."

"I know you don't see it right now because you think you're in love, but you're going to do something so impulsive for him that you will end up in prison. Or worse, you'll get knocked up by that loser, living in, God forbid, Bridgeport with three kids by your twentieth birthday. Dear, open your eyes, Carter is a stupid piece of shit. I'm just saving you from yourself."

"Carter is not a stupid piece of shit," she murmurs and she sees her mother roll her eyes in disappointment. "And I don't need to be saved."

"That boy is going to ruin your life."

She breathes, trying her damn hardest to keep her voice calm and levelled when she's anything but, "Please Bizzy, I promise I won't see him anymore."

"Our decision is final."

"Bizzy! You can't —" And with that, her mother smacks her across the face, and she stumbles back against the wall with a shriek. "You will not raise your voice at me. Addison, I've had it with you." she shouts, poking a finger to her temple harshly. She only stands there, shaking and sobbing.

The print on her face stings but she thinks it's mostly because she's embarrassed Bizzy and herself tonight.

"You don't know how _lucky_ you are to have me as your mother, young lady."

"I know you must hate me right now." _well, that part is accurate,_ "And when you have a child, only then you will understand why we're doing this for you."

More tears spill. She can't stop them.

"If I ever have a kid, I will only care if they're _happy_."

"Happy?" her mother chuckles, the smile not reaching her eyes, "What's happy? That's a term for stupid people."

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick_ \- there goes the grandfather clock.

_(fun fact, it actually belonged to her grandfather, Sir Samuel Addison Montgomery. Very antique and historical and very much from the old country, which in her case is Ireland.)_

It's past eight now.

She's texted. She's tried calling her husband. She's still silently sitting by her lonesome, waiting for Derek, but now, she's progressed to staring at the door with a drink in her hand.

She needs to drink to take control of her emotions. She needs to drink so she wouldn't have to be her _'normal'_ nagging self. She needs gin to not pick a fight with Derek tonight. She needs to be just-barely-there lucid but not drunk at all to survive tonight's dinner.

_Who is she kidding? It's forty minutes past their reservation._

She tells herself not to nag, not to shout, not to be mad at him for not even informing her that he won't make it.

_It's okay. It's okay._

They'll just reschedule, like they always do. It's not a big deal. It's not their first time. It's not as though they have anything important to discuss tonight.

He's busy - a neurosurgeon, after all.

_It's okay. It's okay._

She will forget this ever happened, like she always does.

_Kind of._

Checking her phone - _nothing_, not even a missed call or a reply.

_It's okay. It's okay._

She'll wait because she's only been waiting for most of three years.

But impatience turns to annoyance and that becomes hate and she clenches the blanket on her lap tightly around herself and her cold toes curls under her delectably.

She feels ridiculous in this fucking dress.

_He's not coming._

She kind of, sort of had anticipated it.

_Really?_

_Fine. She didn't saw it coming at all._

So much for hoping. So much for signs. So much for trying.

Her _plan _\- yes, because she only has one thing in mind to accomplish tonight and that is, unsurprisingly so, to pass out right here on the couch.

_Why not?_

She'll drink past cognitive ability, until she becomes too tired to even drag herself upstairs.

_Sounds fun._

She's going to get stupid drunk that she'll feel like crap in the morning.

_That's a plan._

She'll get so ridiculously wasted that she'll vow off -

There's a knocking on the door and that, for some reason, grates on her nerves, but also, soothes a ragged piece inside her too.

_Derek!_

It's all going to be okay now because he's here.

He's finally home.

But she doesn't even stop to think why he knocked on the door, instead of just using his own set of keys like he always does. 

Power walking - _no_, more like running to the door, she swings the front door open with a smile that quickly turned upside down when it actually registers in her head that the man before her isn't Derek.

"_Ouch_."

It's just Mark.

She groans, arms coming up to wrap tightly around her torso.

He watches her steadily and the second he really _really_ sees her and what she's wearing, barely wearing, his eyes widen, mouth open in a gasp and she sees him slide up and down her length, like she's the only person he's ever laid eyes on and it brings heat rushing to her cheeks. 

"What?"

"Nothing." he says, shaking his head and laughing at the same time. She's curious as to what's so funny. "I'm sorry. It's just — you look like a eight hundred dollar an hour escort."

Her eyes narrows, scrutinising, and her nose wrinkles much to her disgust at him. "Go to hell," she grinds out before slamming the door in his face.

"Hey, hey, Addie!"

She won't open the door, that's pretty much a guarantee.

She doesn't even acknowledge it when he rings the doorbell incessantly like an obnoxious child.

"Addison!"

_See, she can't even hear him._

She glances at the hall table where an arrangement of orchids and gladioli used to sit there, spilling over the lip of a vase, a hint of the tropics sill teasing her nose even though the flowers have long since withered and died.

"Addie," he calls, draws out her name in a way that makes her skin feel tight. "Open up. It was meant to be a compliment."

_Compliment?_

She crosses her arms over her chest and ignores his request. "Go away," she says, winces at the petulant tone of her voice. In his presence, she always seems to turn into the loser, desperate teenager she once was. "Go home."

"_Red_, come on, it was just a joke."

"I said go home — your own home."

"I thought you'd find it funny. We do this all the time."

She looks at herself through a reflection at the window and frowns at what she sees.

_Funny?_

Maybe she's gone too far and overboard with the red lips and the hair and she suppose her red dress is too short and revealing for a dinner at Drago and her heels are too stripper-esque for classy. Or maybe it's just the distorted reflection of the window that's severely flawing how she looks or maybe it's all in her head.

She just really wanted tonight to work out.

"Why on earth would I find you calling me a prostitute funny?" 

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no," he says quickly, all in one breath, "I said escort — _es-cort —_ not prostitute. They're not the same thing."

"Only you would know." 

She goes to get a sweater to cover herself up. She's too old to be dressing as she is.

It's quiet now outside - he's gone quiet when she returns. But she can still hear and feel his presence at the door and like her, he must have too because just as quickly, he starts all over again. "Addison, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sorry — really sorry."

She fixes a glare at the closed door, like Mark's developed x-ray vision along with eternal life and super speed. "Please, Red," he says, his voice dropping to a low plea. "In fact you actually look incredibly ... _nice_."

There's a long pause.

_Incredibly nice._

Then, she hears him shuffle a little and she moves a step closer to the door.

"Are you going to open the door? I think it's going to rain, Addie."

She scoffs, prepares to call him out for the liar that he is, but then she remembers she's alone in this house and in need of a little human interaction. Slowly, she opens the door to let him in.

His eyes gleam as he takes her in once again, but then quickly furrows at the sight of the cardigan. "What's with the grandma sweater?" he asks as soon as he's inside. He reaches with one hand to tug at the material on her shoulder.

She shudders internally when the back of his hand skims her skin and takes a step back.

"I'm cold."

He looks sad, she thinks. Or maybe that's just her own reflection in his eyes. Or, you know, maybe it is what it is - _they_ don't particularly like themselves very much. She guess they've just proven that saying about eyes don't lie.

_Misery. Misery. Misery._

"Wine?"

Regardless of his answer, she's already heading to the kitchen to grab a bottle herself, already decided long before he showed up that she's in need for more alcohol in her system to function amicably.

He just smiles agreeably at her and makes himself at home on the couch, then he picks up the bottle of alcohol on the apothecary she's already started to drain dry. "This is the Macallan 1926 Derek got from that underground auction thing three years ago," he raises an eyebrow at her, "And you hate whiskey."

The smirk is telling her that he couldn't care less about the alcohol, he looks more fascinated and intrigued by her defiance. But that's also a lot more beguile than she wants him to be.

"I hate a lot of things, Mark ... who cares?"

**xxx**

He thinks she still spins fairytales for dreams, magical fantasies full of princes and princesses and happily ever afters, that she's still waiting for her white knight to come and sweep her off her feet and make her feel safe, like John did for Marlena in Days of Our Lives when she still believed in things like soap operas and romance novels and true love and soulmates - all the things she held dear before ... well, you know, before _life_ happened, before people broke her heart and before her father betrayed her trust, before her entire world collapsed around her.

He doesn't think she understands those kinds of things, mean, messy things like betrayal and lies, doesn't think a pretty, perfect princess could comprehend the darker side of life. But she's not pretty, not in the ways that count - and she's not a princess - and she's far from perfect.

Yes, she might be on the surface, with her designer clothes and long legs and silky hair, but inside - she's _ugly_, or at the very least, broken ... just like him.

There's this strange glint in her eyes.

_Guilt. Grief. Pain._

He pushed her away. He made her cry. He kissed her anyway.

She was ready. He was afraid. He said horrible things to her because he knows he's not good enough for her.

He could see it in her eyes, that he had been replaced. She got back with Derek and they started a family.

Now everything is finished, everything is blown to pieces, everything is back to where they started.

He paused. She's paused now too.

They're both fucking alone.

_Again._

The trouble is not that he's _single_ and will likely stay _single_, but that he is _lonely_ and will likely stay _lonely_.

They're both sitting on opposite ends of the couch, elbow against the armrest, palm under cheek and watching TV - or, at least, just looking at it.

She's staring wistfully at a couple making out and he averts his gaze (_h__is nanny and her thick Polish accent still rings in his head whenever those scenes plays on TV_). He looks at her, only her, the profile of her tipping her head back and draining the red in her wine glass.

There's a drought now in his mouth as he watches her swallow, gulp, her throat bobbing with the alcohol going down.

He imagines.

He imagines his tongue there, stroking against the sensitive skin along her jugular, tasting her reaction to him, and the thick, hot pulse of her blood.

He wants her to -

"Do you believe it's true?"

He startles, quickly blinks her out of his mind the moment he hears her voice again, and he mumbles something that resembles a pardon. "Do you believe it's true — that it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all?"

This time, he restrains himself from rolling his eyes because she's Addison and she's _sort of_ his friend. He downs Derek's prized scotch whiskey first – using that term loosely – before answering her. "I don't know. I've never been in love."

They both know that's a blatant lie and for a moment there she almost looks as though she's about to call him out on it when she squints at him, her head turning sideways.

_Thinking. Analysing. Studying._

But she must have decided otherwise because her attention is back at the television as quickly as this conversation ended.

Well, he's never been that honest with a girl either.

She leans over the apothecary to reach for the whiskey and pours it into her wine glass - a lot more than a double, he must add.

He tells her it's a seventy-five thousand dollar bottle and that Derek will definitely notice the missing contents.

She doesn't stop. She doesn't acknowledge his presence.

"It's not wine, Addie. Take it slow."

She stops and looks at him. But he doesn't think she stopped on his account.

He's lonely. And he's lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, he can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs and it scares the shit out of him to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.

So, he imagines - imagines Addison smiling up at him instead of scowling like she is now. Smiling that loose, fluid smile and brushing his hair back from his face.

He would smile, too, because he loves it when she’s smiling. It’s different and not often at all.

”You’re beautiful.”

Then, she would lean closer, so he would be able to smell the Chanel and booze seeping through her pores and breath as she tells him he's sweet.

But he's not sweet and he's not very nice either. He will always be a man and a Sloan, so he would reach across the space and presses his mouth to hers just because he can.

Addison’s lips are red and enticing from the wine she was sipping before, and if he doesn’t kiss them soon, he may just bite them completely off. And so he takes a firm grip of her wrist and pulls her _(surprisingly and pliantly willing)_ body and pins her to his.

“I should have made you mine when I had the chance,” he murmurs into her mouth.

“You wouldn’t know how.”

Her challenge draws his lips to hers like a magnet, and it’s in no way proper, in no way graceful, all nips and heavy breath and tongues sliding against each other.

She palms the front of his trousers and grips him in warning.

_(it's his own imagination, remember?)_

And then he sees her slip off the couch and onto her knees before him, her fingers working his belt, then his zipper, her eyes sharp and fixed directly on every inch of him.

_(a boy can imagine.)_

* * *

Mark Sloan was twenty-two years old when he first felt his heart beat again.

It wasn't as if he had converted to romanticism or anything. Neither was it that significant of a phenomenon, really - _well, not exactly._

Words cannot fully comprehend, cannot exactly describe how he feels about her, so that's how insignificant and unimportant seeing her toothy smile every morning is to him and her intensely coloured eyes almost disappearing into themselves, and how warm she makes him feel.

It's like taking a long hot shower after the cold seeped in from all of the cracks in his broken armour.

It's refreshing.

It's the most amazing feeling.

Though it had been fourteen years, it still feels relatively new to him, like he's never gotten used to it. He isn't sure how long it will last or why it even happened to him in the first place - why he fell for a girl he knows had can never have.

_Why?_

But sometimes, he catches himself staring at her.

His heart would thump faster whenever he sees her, regardless of whose certain best friend she has linked around her arm. He would hear his own blood pulsing in his veins when her perfume invades his senses or when her red hair tickles his skin and every time she even so merely looks at him, he feels a burst of energy.

He feels safe and ... _happy_, but it's also nauseating like food poisoning or a hangover the morning after a binge of trying _(and failing.) _to stop images of her from infringing his thoughts and mind.

But it's - _she's_ comfortable and _she's_ exciting.

She feels like home.

But she's the home he can't go home to.

It's like being lost in the right direction, like he's trailing in a path of glitter.

Long before he made the conscious decision to break his own heart, numb it down, force himself to feel nothing and do everything without regret, his heart - he had a beating heart; it wasn't all that bruised, worn out and wounded.

Not yet.

It was at five when he had done just that, the first time his father looked into his eyes and saw something else, something from before, something that was in forever after.

Someone that was lost in the clouds of dusty dreams and embraced end.

He knows he resembles his late mother, and it had been clear then as it is now, _loath_ reflecting in the man's dark eyes each time he stared down at him and he remembers watching Derek's father lift his children onto his shoulders and whispered encouragements in their ears and wishes for his father to do the same.

Mallory Sloan (née Hofstadt), death by acute drug poisoning.

_(commonly known as an overdose.)_

Arthur Sloan, capable of nothing more than hating his only son.

It's this that he thought about as he blinks up at the ceiling above him - Addison is still wistfully looking at the TV - nothing blurring into a symphony of hallucinations.

Before he fell too hard and too deep for Addison Montgomery _(she wasn't yet a Shepherd.)_, he had a thing for blondes.

His mother was blonde and in his earliest memory of her, she was playing with a mane of long, thick, blonde hair, pulling it up and letting it fall, preparing for a night out with his father. He watched her through the mirror, noting the brittle smile and fragile gaze in her eyes. He was only five-years-old but already knew how it would go, how the evening will end.

He didn't tell her not to leave him alone again that night.

At midnight she crawled into bed beside him and held him close, her tears staining the thin cotton of his pyjamas. His father had a meeting, or a surprise work trip, or a new underage girlfriend (_one of them, or all three of them_.) - although he didn't learn of that last one until he was closer to twelve.

Mallory Christine Sinclair was old money before his father made her a Sloan, and she lulled him to sleep with a whiff of Chanel on her skin and expensive brandy on her breath.

His mother was a model before his father made her a Sloan, and her limbs were long and slender and fluid as they wrapped around him, filling him with soft and warm and the only thing he knew as home.

His mother was happy before his father made her a Sloan and when she wished him sweet dreams that night, he actually believed they could come true.

So he didn't tell her all the things he so indefinitely needed her to know.

That he didn't like watching TV alone at night.

That he didn't like the dark.

That he didn't like hearing her cry.

That he didn't like his father's temper.

That he didn't like to be left alone, even with the housekeeper.

He didn't like not knowing where they were or the time they would be back or whether they'd even be back at all.

There was a single strand of blonde hair on his pillow when he woke up in the morning, and he watched as it caught in the sunlight, peeping between curtains that an unknown housekeeper with an unknown face had thoughtfully drawn.

He learned his lesson quickly, early, before he really understood what it means, and when he sat down for breakfast with his glassy-eyed mother, she told him that all that glitter isn't gold.

_He hears she's one in a million._

Her fingers shook around his when she deposited him at the playground in kindergarten, and when she makes small talk with Carolyn Shepherd, her laugh is higher and twitchier than he remembers.

He wanted to go look for Derek, desperately, because he had to get away from this version of his mother. So he slipped his hand out of hers, she was too distracted to even notice, and bolted to look for his best friend. But he couldn't find him, he was sure he Derek was off somewhere staring at his shoes or books or at Bridget Reagan. As he started wandering again, he felt tingles crawl up his skin when he heard his mother laugh at another one of Carolyn's bad jokes.

He ran faster and still didn't find Derek but what he did find was blonde hair, half tied up and half down, and a red ribbon trailing towards the ground.

He picked it up, like his mother taught him to, and politely tell the blonde girl that he has her ribbon.

She turned to face him and he liked how she smells, flowery and sweet.

He didn't tell her that, though.

She held out a hand for her ribbon. She's skinny and all legs and about two inches taller than him.

She smiled and giggled as their fingers brush when he passed the ribbon to her, and it's wide and bright and beautiful; he ignored the fact that she was missing two of her front teeth.

"Thank you."

He couldn't stop himself when she laughed, real and honest and _happy_ and filled with all the things he doesn't remember, so he pushed up on his tip toes, scuffing the tip of his new loafers, and pressed a gentle kiss to her wide mouth.

It only lasted a second, probably even less, but she didn't scream, didn't cry, just pushed him away with another laugh and ran across the playground to a redhead, the red ribbon trailing in her wake.

She was bigger than him because she's a girl and he's a boy. But they were both still five-years-old. And he sat flat on his butt until Derek ran up to him, his big head of curls bouncing in every direction made him laugh a little, he held out a hand, helping him up.

"We should tell Ms. Eriksen that she pushed you, Mark.”

"No, she's my friend."

He looked for her at recess, it was easy to spot her blonde hair glittering in the sunlight across the playground.

_There's a hole in his heart and it's bleeding._

He was the one who found _her_ \- eyes closed, hands folded, hair falling in a golden curtain across the pillow.

There were pills and there was a bottle of barely there brandy and when he rested his head on his mother's chest - there wasn't a steady beat beneath his ear anymore.

He called Derek's mother, and not his father, because he remembered his mother telling him that he could always trust her with anything. He didn't think he could be alone by himself with strangers in his home when they take his mother away. He was scared and he didn't know what else to do other than to sit quietly beside her and wait for Aunt Carolyn.

He learned his lesson well again, because there's nothing glittering anymore.

_He feels tortured with regret._

There was a funeral he barely remembers, a visit to the cemetery he wants to forever forget, and too many people swarming the penthouse in the aftermath.

Derek was with him most of the time, quiet and confused but at his side nonetheless because it's what he's supposed to do.

He's his bet friend.

The brunette Derek liked from their class came by and said she was sorry and he has a vague memory of dark curls and polished Mary Janes, but he didn't really look at her and she only looked at Derek and none of it really mattered to him anyway. Then, the blonde girl from the playground showed up with her mother and stepfather-number-two and a dark ribbon restraining the golden hair falling down her back.

She followed him when he had to get away, his father's eyes were already narrowing and piercing at him as he escaped to the balcony and away from people he don't really know and want to talk to even less.

It was cloudy and cool but the sun still found a way to peek through the clouds and turned her hair to spun gold. He sucked in a breath, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, and it's the first time he had cried since he realised his mother had been absent from his life for years but is truly gone for good now.

He wiped angrily at the tears because he is a Sloan and he is not a baby, and she looked away then, to pretend she didn't see the tears. The girl didn't say a word and he's grateful, because talking too much is all anyone had done since he rang the Shepherds after finding his mother. She sat with him while it got darker and colder and the light disappeared from the sky.

"I really am sorry," she said when it's too dark, too cold, too empty to stay outside any longer.

He nodded, because he isn't ready for words, and reached up to press a gentle kiss to her cheek, the way he remembers his mother would when saying goodbye to her friends. She didn't push him this time, but her cheeks turn bright pink and she rushed back to the penthouse before he could say thank you.

She was long gone when he was getting ready for bed and found three blonde hairs clinging to the fine wool of his jacket. He wrapped them in a handkerchief, a Sloan dutifully embroidered in one corner, and buried them in the bottom of his sock drawer.

"No," he chokes on his breath and Addison looks at him, a question on her face, "My answer to your question.”

She's still confused but he's not going to say it, not going to repeat the question she asked.

He don't think she's in the mood to make him anyway.

_No. He doesn't think it's better to have loved and lost than never love at all._

He blinks up at the ceiling again and again, hand tracing for the stitching on the couch.

Mark Sloan was twenty-two when he first felt his heartbeat, and it was Addison _Montgomery _who had forced it out for him.

He'll never forgive her for it.

But he'll never forget her either.

* * *

_**to be continued ...**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. ;) Hope you enjoyed and please leave a review.


	3. 2005 : the night in question (2) — threads in knitted lace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Unhinged**

_ **(AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**2005 : ****the night in question ** **(2)**

_ **threads in knitted lace** _

-:-

_"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. The sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me."_

_\- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed_

* * *

And so it begins.

A girl carrying pieces of a slanted heart and a boy who claims to be empty inside.

They skirt around fragile passion, catastrophe disguised as lust.

They ask each other only for an escape - he from the dark clouds looming in his mind, her from the cracked version of herself in the mirror, from the dampened dream of perfection that had slipped away. Maybe it was an infatuation or an obsession - anything but tainted love. They are dripping in fear as they traipse around like chess pieces across a board of emotions, in a game that belonged to neither of them.

His move, her move, and then again. His move, her move. And it was fine that way. It all worked fine for Addison and Mark ... at first.

Because sometimes, you just need to find someone whose demons play well with your own, she realises.

She's out of wine - no, _they're_ out of wine and she announces this out loud for him to know of their unfortunate predicament. Or maybe she's just a little past tipsy and her mouth is loose. _Maybe. Maybe_. But before he could offer to get a bottle from the kitchen, she stands to do it herself and everything in the room spins with her.

_Dizzy. Light headed. Faint._

Nursing a killer headache is going to be most of her agenda tomorrow.

Comparatively, Mark and alcohol are one and the same.

_Toxic. Bad. Cancerous._

She knows she should stay away, never engage but she just can't help herself, so she sweeps a bottle of wine from the cabinet and glides to join him back on the couch again.

And also comparatively, Mark and alcohol are her best friends.

_Sad. Sad. Sad._

She hates feeling this way.

Then again, there's always pretending, she can not feel this way. She’s good at that - pretending. She decides to do just that.

_Fake it till you make it._

So she could make herself forget why she was upset in the first place.

_Easy-peasy._

When she hands him his wine, he blinks at her, at the pleasantry of her face.

Faking it until she makes it.

_But make it to where?_

The smile is still lingering on his face, but there's something twisted about it now and a faint frown is stitched between his eyebrows.

"You've cheered up," he comments, but she's a detective specialising in Derek and Mark long enough to hear the reservations in his voice.

_(perhaps that's what she needs, a complete 180 in her career. Detective Shepherd does have a nice ring to it.)_

"So?" she says, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"It's just you were very upset earlier, and now you're ... not — Well, slightly not."

His accusation adds a little of the weight and irritation back on, but she plasters a smile at him anyway. "Maybe I've taken something when I went to get the wine."

"Have you?"

"No," she snaps, "God, no, Mark. Of course I haven't ... Why can't I be happy just because?"

"I'm glad you're happy, really, but _you_ don't do just because. I don't understand where this quick change is coming from. It's a little disconcerting ... and scary."

"Just because I'm not sulking anymore — I'm not brooding," she raises her eyebrows, "What, what is it? I don't get why you're making a big deal out of nothing."

And now she's getting angry.

"You don't have to pretend with me is all I'm saying."

She sighs, tired, "No, I know."

"Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

“Anything ... What are you thinking about?"

She's always thinking about _him_.

She swirls the wine around in her glass before taking a sip. "I was upset ... obviously," she admits, "I don't know what is it. I’m —” shrugging, she looks up at him. Her eyes pained.

“It's not even about being happy anymore. I'm just trying to get through each day, each moment — I can't keep asking myself _'Am I happy?' _It just makes me even more miserable," she says, then adding, "I'm so tired of feeling like this. It doesn't make sense because I _have_ everything ... _had_ everything, I guess, but even then, I was still a little sad. I don't know if it's me or because — Mark, I don't know if I believe in it anymore, real lasting happiness. All those perky, well adjusted people you see in movies and TV shows? I don't think they exist ... but I want that, real lasting happiness." she speaks slowly, as if she has to control herself from screaming every word of it so the universe can hear her plea.

She wants to be happy _again_.

Closing the gap between them, he scoots across the cushions and faces her. "You want to know the secret to happiness?"

She makes a non-committal noise under her breath.

“The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep ourselves busy with unimportant nonsense and eventually, we'll be where we're all waiting to be."

She remains composed, the lively twinkle in her eyes unfaded. She's amused with his exegesis.

"Why do you think we're all miserable? We're all searching for something that does not exist."

The other secret to happiness is to numb the pain. To put something on top of it. Food, green juice, anything to numb the pain.

_Pain?_

_Derek?_

_Remember?_

She - she wants to put something on top of _it_, but she doesn't have anything.

* * *

**. . . 1997 . . .**

* * *

They name him Jesse.

Well, Derek's mother did. And while she wanted to do it herself, she kindly let Carolyn do the honour in naming her first grandson.

_(she also needed those extra points to permanently get on mom's good side.)_

They hadn't discussed having kids until almost two years into their marriage. It was late one night when she was boneless and satiated and tired of holding back. His eyes had lit up when she had agreed to stop taking her pill at the end of the month and see what would happen.

From everything she had heard and seen and learned throughout the years, she reckoned it would have taken them months, enough time for her to actually process the idea of a baby - at the very least two months of slow and long process that would have left her feeling empty and desperately wanting - and change her mind.

It hadn't even taken a month, though.

Now, she creeps into Derek's study at quarter to four in the morning after being called out for a delivery late at night. That's usually the time babies decides it's time to come see the world. She knows she should get used to it by now, but still, even as a resident, every time she wakes to her beeping pager, it always feel like the first time.

She's tired and heavy, finds her husband asleep at the chair, legs propped up on the table and their son resting against his chest.

She smiles, moving quietly to their side and stroking their son's downy hair before she lifts him from his sleeping father's arms.

He's barely two months old and still has that new baby smell that makes her chest tight. He rouses slightly when she tugs him to her, cradling him and he lets out a tiny yawn as his hands curl into fists and push out when he settles again.

_Precious._

After, she nudges Derek's shoulder with her hip, calling his name softly.

”Der."

It takes a moment for him to wake up, but soon he's blinking and staring up at her with the same eyes their son had inherited from him.

"Addie?"

He's still drowsy, confused.

_Adorable_.

"You fell asleep."

Derek's eyes widen comically, hands flying to his chest when he realises their son is no longer there. "Jesse —"

"— is fine. See?"

He looks down at the baby in her arms, visibly sagging with relief. She smiles softly and he stands, wincing when his knee cracks loudly and she teases him about being old. It earns him a sleepy glare from him.

Moving into their bedroom, she lowers Jesse onto his bassinet. He shifts in his sleep, fidgety, as she dusts kisses against his silk soft forehead. He tries to grab her fingers before she eases away and he settles back to sleep.

Derek's already slipped into bed, but she stands, watching over their son.

He's so small.

When he was born, the midwives around her had complimented her on how big their son was - born eight pounds and seven ounces. That hadn't surprised her, both Derek and her were pretty hefty at birth too.

_"You know, dear, I was beautiful before I got pregnant with you." _Her mother had always reminded her how she ruined her body. Not Archer, though - no, after having him, her body quickly shrunk back to how it was.

Jesse - he's _still_ small.

She didn't hear Derek when he moved to her side, having thought he had fallen back to sleep, so she startles slightly when his voice curls around her ear.

"You okay?"

She tears away from their son.

“Yea," she nods and shifts a little, turning on her side to drop her head against his shoulder, "I'm just — there will come a time when he'll go off to college ... then he'll have a life of his own ... wife and kids and grandkids. And I know it's selfish to say this ... I don't think I'll ever be ready for that, to let him go. He's just a baby."

_Their baby._

Derek's palm settles on the small of her back, resting his cheek atop her head, his warmth radiating through her tight muscles.

"I know. He's just a baby," he repeats, "For now, babe. _For now_. Good thing we have eighteen years to get ourselves ready."

She nods, throat tight. She knows.

She does know.

_(god, no, she doesn't.)_

* * *

There is an awful tendency that human beings have and that is to fall back into old habits, re-memorise failed patterns in order to feel almost as nice as they once did, to seek solace in comfort, and comfort in the darkest crevices of their lives.

Toxicity has always tasted sweet to him, which is exactly why he missed her - completely, wholly, and irrevocably for the two days that he hadn't seen her.

Addison _Shepherd_ had stolen bits and pieces of him, rewritten his misery into something he craved liked nothing else.

Two days prior, their encounter was brief. They had a greasy pizza together before she was paged back to the hospital. And as abrupt as that night was he returned home_ (his own home.)_ with love-soaked blood coursing through his veins and her scent clouding his senses for days.

But gravity is a cruel reminder; without her, he is still tethered to the ground.

And now he listens to her voice, slightly slurred and slightly breathless, but stern and adamant.

He listens to her complain about _her_ husband ... _his_ best friend.

He listens, he drinks and he pours her another and another.

He listens because he's the one who had encouraged her to talk.

He listens, then he stops drinking and stops pouring her drinks too. But she only seems to be drunker than she was five minutes ago.

He wonders which drunk-Addison will come out of the shadows tonight.

_"I mean he still doesn't have the decency to call me and tell me he'll be home late."_

_“He doesn't have surgery. He's somewhere ignoring me."_

_"... We made plans weeks ago. I switched shifts with Dr. Geller. He isn't the only one busy, I am too. But I always make sure to put my marriage first."_

_"I don't think he's coming home at all tonight."_

_"You don't have to be here, Mark. It's getting late.”_

_"I texted, he said eight was fine. Just a word, fine, and that was that. And of course, I didn't just leave it as it is, I had to text him, 'I love you' and you know what his reply was ... nothing. He didn't text back."_

_"Why are your species such assholes?”_

_"You know, Bizzy would have me wash my mouth with soap whenever I would misbehave. Isn't that some sort of child abuse?"_

_"I mean I'm worried here, Mark. What if something happened to him?"_

_"Am I invisible?"_

_“I scolded him, Mark. I said he was a very bad boy ... I grounded him for three days because he broke a stupid vase and all I remember thinking at that moment was I've become my mother. I became the person I promised to never be and the _ _next day ... the next day ...”_

_"Why are you here more times than he is?"_

_"I know he blames me. I blame me too."_

_"... he can't even look at me. It's been three years."_

_"Love can't seem to unite us. Why not hatred?"_

_"I took my eyes off him for ten seconds, it's not my fault he's gone."_

_"If I could just get his attention — if I could get him to notice me again ..."_

Addison Shepherd, tonight she's the sad/miserable/angry drunk, who counts her misery.

That's a triple threat, and not the good kind.

He should run - run for his life while he still can.

"He still hasn't called, Mark," she frowns, slamming her phone onto the couch, then crosses her arms. Her eyes are practically closed, and her voice is low and rough. "And you — you're still here — sometimes — sometimes I really want to _hate_ you," she clears her throat then, sighing while patting his thigh with her hand. "But I can't.”

_Hate._

He can't say her words didn't leave his heart tattered in bruises because that would be the kind of lie that sets pants on fire.

He exhales harshly as she continues, essentially biting his tongue all the while, contemplating how they have managed to allow their situation to become so impossibly screwed up and twisted.

"Someone should invent an undo button that can undo long amounts of time. Fifteen years. Three years. A year. A lifetime even. One click and everything could just go back to the way it was," she tells him after she's taken another large sip of her drink.

She's in a lot of pain - he knows she is and he wants to help. He's never seen her so beaten down and defeated - not like this, no - all he wants is to make it stop for her, make her stop before she pushes herself too far to the point where he'll have no way to reel her back in _(again). _But he doesn't know what to do anymore; talking to Derek about it doesn't seem to be doing much of anything, really.

"Like a time machine, you mean?"

"No. Like an undo button where everything else stays the same, only the mistake doesn't."

* * *

**. . . 1980 . . .**

* * *

She used to sit with her back flush against the wall, eyes shut tight and heart bracing hard against the ache that nevertheless swept, through her like a plague, landing somewhere unceremoniously where it would do the most damage ... like - _she_ _don't know_ \- a bloodsucking insect that craved trembling lips and salty tears. But most of all, the dull pain in her entire being.

She learned to also cry silently too, because children should be _(barely)_ seen and not heard.

And when she scraped her knee on the church steps at her aunt's fourth wedding, Addison bore her mother's exasperation _("Couldn't you have been more careful? That dress is one-of-a-kind.")_ as Esmeralda, her nanny, cleaned the wound and poured fire onto the raw skin.

"Look at what you've done. Now it's ruined," her mother spat, then added on a long-suffering sigh before leaving both nanny and daughter alone.

She sucked in a breath until she was sure the threat of tears were completely gone.

“It's good to let it out, Addison."

"No, it's not. You don't understand," she snapped back, still sitting primly atop the paper towels Esmeralda had been thoughtful enough to set there.

Public washrooms, even the ones with an attendant, really, are questionable in terms of salubrity. "Could you let yourself out, Esmeralda? I'd really like to be alone."

Her nanny, with concern in her eyes and a wan smile, nodded and let herself out - again, a thoughtful gesture. She knew her loyal nanny would be standing guard just outside until she was done letting _it_ out herself.

Fresh tears brimmed.

Alone, she gave the waterworks free reign, but not too much. Bad enough to know that her nanny knew - she always did.

**xxx**

Then, it happened one night while her mother was in France for another one of her charities_ ("There is still so much that needs to be done. I cannot take care of a two children on top of that, Esmeralda.")_ and her father was supposedly coming back from France the day her mother flew across the country.

His sole purpose of the trip, she came to learn tonight was to hide his mistresses from his wife. But he had abysmally failed already because her father is never great at keeping his indiscretions discreet. He always _always_ does something so careless to get caught.

It's like he doesn't really care that Bizzy knows or that she'll find out.

He's grandiose, exploitative and entitled and he enjoys flaunting the things he has, money and women and both. But she loves her father dearly - always will, no matter what he does or says, even if he leaves.

And maybe it's all her fault why he's not coming home tonight, she thinks to herself as she stares at the plump pie she had baked all by herself for her father's homecoming.

She's been waiting for the Captain for over two hours now.

She's not sure what she ought to do right now; Archer's asleep and Esmeralda as well.

She could drain her father's prized scotch, but then again, she's come to learn that she has a dislike for that particular amber liquor It was three days ago that she had had her first drink and she can still taste that awfulness on her tongue and it's been more than seventy-two hours of vigorous gurgling now.

She had caught Archer and his friends at the skate park while she was on her way home from ballet and said she had always been curious as to the taste

They laughed at her because and she doesn't understand why they would automatically assumed that she wouldn't have the stomach for scotch; they don't know her at all.

Her brother just told her to go straight home.

Later on that same afternoon, a friend of Archer's, a dusty blonde, came up to her while she was reading a book in the backyard and pushed a flask towards her.

She eyed the boy for a while then at the dark amber liquid uncertainly. Nevertheless she took a sip of the scotch and it went down terribly, like a shot of fire burning her innards.

She wondered how people could drink this stuff and live to tell the tale.

Maybe that was the point.

She took another sip and it still tasted like liquid fire.

She took one more and she nearly hacked out her guts.

"Don't taste it," he wisely advised. "Just shoot it down your throat."

So since then _(and hopefully she'll never be in a position again where she's desperate enough to drown herself in liquor.),_ she had sworn off scotch for the rest of her life. But - but she had also learned to appreciate the burn as bile creep up and roar up her throat, while tears threaten to debilitate her - a lady always keeps her cool, she constantly reminds herself.

_Something is wrong?_

Something is definitely wrong right now.

_Get it out. Purge it out. Forget about it._

No use crying over _absentees_, for God's sake.

The Captain isn't coming home tonight.

"You should smile more, you look _pretty_," the dusty blonde's voice seems to call to her from a long-ago echo, soft and almost a breath, and she still isn't sure if she's heard it, truthfully.

She isn't pretty.

Defeated, she cuts herself a large piece of pie, welcomes the knowledge of the oncoming burn in her oesophagus, the brimming hot tears, the dull certainty that she will now be powerless against her own actions.

She's ugly, she realises that not for the first time. 

* * *

The night takes a turn.

She sulks. She broods. She drinks and becomes angrier. She drinks some more and she doesn't forget. She drinks more than she should and everything dulls; the lights, the heaviness of her head on her shoulders, the noise the glass makes every time she deposits it back on the apothecary table for him to fill. All of it, really - well, except for the images in her head and the sounds of the car screeching and the smell of blood.

She's drunk.

She's drunk but she's not drunk _enough_ because she can still rationalise her slurred words and swaying vision into a definition. And she's still sober enough because she realises that he's stopped pouring her drinks fast enough, so she reaches to snatch the bottle for herself when he seals his palm over her hand.

She guess she's more drunk than sober.

"I think we should stop."

She ignores him and tightens her hold on the bottle.

“Your head is going to be sore in the morning —"

"— Good," Some physical pain to outweigh the ones in her mind. "You stop if you want."

He tries a softer approach. "Don't do this Addie. Come on, you don't —" But she manages to snatch the bottle from him anyway. No longer impeded by his grasp, it's clear he's failed.

She pours and drinks and pours and drinks and suddenly her eyes are burning with tears but she pushes them away, furious.

She misses _him_.

Mark takes her head in each of his hands so she'll look at him, only that doesn't work either because she can always _always_ close her eyes when he looks at her like that.

"Addie," His voice is like a caress, soothing and electrifying her all at once, and she can't take it. Knows that if he continues, she'll break and she doesn't get to break.

“Don't."

"_Red_," he tries again, voice a whisper, and she absolutely knows with every fibre in her that he's finding it hard to swallow; looking at her like _he'll_ fall if _she_ does; waiting for her eyes to open so he can search them in a bid to eradicate this overwhelming crippling guilt that's been gnawing away at her insides for over a decade.

He thinks he's helping but he never is - not really anyway.

"Why did you have to kiss me?" her omission is no higher than a whisper but he hears it, lets go of her as he goes cold at the break of her voice. "Why do you have to mess with my head all the time?"

"Addison, I —" he reaches out to take her again but she pushes away.

"Stop it."

He's beginning to feel like they will never escape this cycle of push and pull they've somehow found themselves trapped in for far too long now. "I don't know. I wasn't really thinking —"

"That's your problem, Mark. You don't ever think about the consequences."

Feeling frustrated and endlessly confused, he feels something snap inside him. "I feel like this isn't even about me," he wonders, his shoulders slightly hunched, voice smooth and quiet. "Are you really angry at me —"

"I'm angry at myself for letting _this_ come this far."

* * *

**. . . 1991 . . .**

* * *

It was late May when Mark went to the campus library after having to speak with his academic adviser about his steeply declining GPA (_it wasn't bad but it wasn't_ _great either_.) and untimely attendance, deciding it's best that he get an early start on next semester's curriculum.

He wants to do better, yield better results, maybe even top three, because, like what his adviser had said, it will only get tougher and tougher. Besides rotations are coming up, so he really _really_ has to focus now.

No more joking around.

Because he's so close now, just two more years until he gets that '_MD_' title forever etched at the end of his name,

_Mark Everett Sloan, M.D._

He can't give up. He mustn't give up. He won't give up. Because that will only prove his father right.

He will be a doctor. He will be successful. He will amount to something in life. Because he is not an embarrassment to the family name.

He could have done better - _yes, he knows_ \- could have studied harder, could have made better choices, could have not enjoyed himself as much as he had during the exam period and the many weeks prior too - _yes, he knows that_.

_Effort_. _Effort. Effort_. He could have put in more of that into his academic life instead of his social life - _yes, he knows that too_.

But then again, it also wasn't as if he had done so poorly that he had failed his second year. Because a _three-point-two-eight _isn't the end of the world and with his kind of lifestyle, he thinks he should be considered as gifted.

While _he _has the potential to graduate with praise, that was what the adviser said (_well, he might have actually used the term 'everyone in general'_.) - the choices he makes and the distractions he accepts will only blur his sight to the finish line.

_His real source of distraction, though?_

A certain redhead.

And his overtly exuberant choices in life is certainly so she would stop taking up so much space in his head.

He just wants to do something light and fun to distract him and numb him from the deep well of sadness that is his life.

And this morning, he's found her perched on his favourite window seat towards the back of the library, behind the abandoned reserves, where the old hags at the front desk are too lazy to get up and check for ... well, you know, funny business.

"Red," he drawls, plopping down at the other end of the throw pillow, eyeing her intently. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He's just being polite. He's always polite to a lady.

She lets out a crisp, exasperated sigh, her eyes flitting up to him for a second before returning to her book. "My misfortune, apparently."

"Hmm," he laughs - oh, how he enjoys the way she speaks to him. "So coy."

He, then, reaches over to tap the spine of her book, his hand never missing a chance to brush along her knee. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Why?" she retorts, "Actually, I am surprised that you are here. I didn't know you even knew where the library was — Are you stalking me, Mark?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he smirks, "Someone watching your every move ... all the _attention _just for you," he shrugs, a proud grin on his face, "So what if I am?"

She huffs, rolls her eyes as she turns her attention back at her book, lifting it up as a barrier between their faces.

Addison must know he loves a good challenge.

_(she does.)_

_Oh, it's always intentions on her part._

He laughs, making sure to touch her hand - _icy cold_ \- when he gently pushes the book down, holding it to her lap and he waits. But still, she blatantly ignores him, focusing on the pages in front of her.

"So, where's your _boyfriend_?" he tries again, drumming his fingers up and down her leg. He knows that _that_ mention of her beau will draw her attention back to him, like a moth to a flame.

She eyes the fingers resting slightly above her knee, then glares up at him, looking as though she's wanting to say something, but ultimately she voices nothing instead.

_Nothing but silence._

Usually, when girls would play hard to get, this would be his point of retreat. But with Addison … she is something else.

_Special. Unique. Exciting._

There is this ... _something_ about her he really enjoys. Perhaps, it's the chase, the challenge, games, he's not so sure, but it's great because it's what's keeping him _here_, with her — something masochistic, maybe.

"Where's _Derek_?" he goes on, still persistent.

She lets out a sharp breath this time and the book snaps shut, nearly closing in on his fingers.

"Mark," she looks up at him, square and straight and scary, and he can see the irritation - _or fascination? _\- playing behind her eyes. "Why ask me?" 

"Answering a question with a question? That's a bit _juvenile_, don't you think?"

"Is that a problem?"

His eyes crinkle at the corners and she chews on the inside of her cheek to keep her face from splitting. But it came away anyway, tugging until her whole face lit up.

He grins at her too.

_Hook, line, and sinker._

"I'm afraid Derek won't be gracing us with his presence for another month or two," he says, even though he knows she knows very well of the reason as to why.

The entire Shepherd clan has gone up to Connecticut for the summer to be with their ailing grandmother and since he's not exactly family, he chose to stay behind.

_Alone._

She regards him momentarily too long, eyes narrowing, brows creasing and lips pursing, and she continues to stare on. And there it is, he sees a genuine sadness, confusion like she's torn, and he's very well rehearsed as to why.

It's also the same way his mother used to look at him. 

_Sadness. Confusion. Regret._

"We — Derek is your best friend, Mark."

It isn't exactly what he's expecting, but he isn't surprised either.

Addison has always had an inexplicable fixation on reminding him in mere statements like that that whatever they are doing is just plain wrong.

_But is it, really?_

It is this golden complex she has, like she is so desperate for perfection, and Derek is as close as it gets. And he ... he is he, Mark, the imperfect.

_You will never be like Derek._

He knows he won't, not ever, but sometimes, he wishes he could stop trying to fill himself with unimportant nonsense just to feel whole. 

He wants to allow himself to love and feel feelings.

He wants Addison.

It wasn't exactly wrong, what they're doing, but it wasn't exactly pure either.

They're just friends, like Derek is, and besides they're broken up for months now.

Perfection; he's got a sudden urge to bend that desire of hers.

"He _used_ to be your boyfriend, Red. You're single now," he challenges, leaning forward. "We're doing nothing wrong." Her eyes widen at the sudden movement, heart skipping in her chest and she swallows, wringing her hands on her lap and feeling the pinch on her finger of the ring Derek had bought her long ago.

Of course, it doesn't go unnoticed by Mark. Nothing ever does. "It's a little pathetic when divorcees hold onto their wedding rings. You should really learn to let go."

He watches as a number of emotions play across her face, each one gone as quickly as the last, so fast that he can't pinpoint any of them. But he's certain his words had set her off, she's fumed, because now, she's turning away from him in her seat again.

Opening the book again, eyes looking but not really reading, she focuses on the same line over and over again, forcing herself to concentrate.

_Whatever the exact cause and mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy, it eventually reaches a limit beyond which enlargement of muscle mass is no longer able to compensate for the increased burden._

"Did I say something wrong, Red?"

_Whatever the exact cause and mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy, it eventually _—

"You're wounding me, Addie."

_Whatever the exact cause and mechanism _—

"Why the cold —" 

His hands finds her shoulders, fingers spreading to her collarbone and he watches her erupt in goosebumps.

She tenses, closing her book again. "They say that if you ignore a dog's bark long enough, it will eventually stop," she says, bitterly, "Living Environment. Chapter Four."

His lips purses in faux shock, but real amusement lightens his eyes. "You've got a clever tongue. I bet I could put it to better use."

"Oh, how charming of you," she mumbles, flashing a brief smile at him before finally moving to get up from her seat.

It is then that his hand decides to dart out of its own accord, his large fingers grasping her slight wrist and stopping her before she could go.

This is nothing, this isn't too much, isn't to pushy or clingy, yet she's losing her breath over it. She stares down at their hands and he pulls away quickly, using it to lift her chin, beckoning her to look at him.

"Tell me you remember."

She looks away, up at the ceiling, to the dusty shelves, to the larges book with tiny word - she's looking anywhere and everywhere but at him. Then, he squeezes her hand harder, yanking her down, levelling her with him.

"I know that you remember.”

"I don't —"

"You remember — that night at the Vanderbilts'," he repeats.

She wonders how his eyes could darken to pitch black so fast and without warning, it was bright and so blue a second ago. But as it always is with Mark, his shift in moods is giving her whiplash and so are the memories of the night in question.

She feels like she's in a hot room being interrogated by the police and she's compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Trying to fight them away, they came anyway.

_Unwanted. Unprecedented. Unfortunate._

A hazy night. A balcony. A birthday party. His warmth. His large hand, the one on her now, tracing across her skin — yanking, pulling, tugging.

She shut her eyes in shame, the memories tainting her mind like a plague.

It was one kiss. It was one time.

She parts her lips, lets out a breath. "So what if I do remember?" she yanks her hand away. "For you, that was just a failed conquest."

Mark shakes his head. "And for you?"

_What difference does it make?_, she wants to ask him.

She wants to know what he wants from her, because this just has to be some kind of sick game to him. She's nothing more than a pawn in his game. 

"Addie ..."

She brings her eyes to him. "For me, it was one big _mistake_," His eyes narrows as she continues, "And besides, shouldn't you be somewhere preying on your next victim?"

He takes a breath and leans back on his seat, resting his elbow on the armrest. "Interesting.”

"What?"He cocks his head to a side. "What I initially considered as rudeness —" he smiles, pleased. "Turns out to be jealousy."

She scoffs as if that's the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard.

Well, it is, actually.

"Jealousy implies that one cares," she corrects. "Which I don't."

"We'll see. You've been sitting here with me for a half hour. That's awfully long for someone who doesn't care," he stands up to up to face her, glancing down at her lips. "You'll give in, Red. You and I, we're the same. We have our vices, we have our issues, let's explore them together."

She takes a step back before looking at him with a shake of her head, almost rolling her eyes but not quite, and her tongue catches between her teeth. "Don't hold your breath — As a matter of fact, please do, because that will never happen — Oh, and Derek and I, we're not broken up, we're on a break." 

* * *

She sits on the edge of the couch with her back slumped, elbows digging into her knees and at the quiver of her lips, her hands go flying to her face.

Maybe if she closes her eyes and prays hard enough she could actually shrink or better yet, disappear.

She tries. She tries. She concentrates as hard as she can. She even tries praying for Mark to dissolve into pink mist.

_(it's not harsh ... no, it's not. she just needs him gone and out of her life - at least one assisted misery never having to resurface ever again and he's the easier one to get rid of right now.)_

But, of course, none of what she had hoped happened because she's left with just enough cognitive ability to understand that Mark isn't even close to leaving her alone.

_Maybe ever._

And it's sad, thinking about it now. Never seeing Mark, never having him around, it will all be really, really ... _sad_.

She doesn't want that. He's the only other constant in her life other than her husband.

She doesn't know what she wants.

Well, that's the problem with life.

_Right?_

Either you know what you want and then don't get what you want, or you get what you want and then you don't know what you want.

She wants _him_ back.

He just listens to the broken echoes of her sobs, quiet, gasping noises that somehow draws him closer, like there's a string literally pulling him to her, where she sits slumped on the other end, her head in her hands and her back heaving.

He cannot take it any longer - hearing her cry and not doing anything.

_No —_

Maybes- Maybe he ought to pretend. Maybe that's what she wants him to do.

_No —_

"Addison," he says softly, tentatively, hoping he wouldn't upset her any further.

She stills for only a moment at the sound of her name, then her head rises and their eyes lock briefly before she turns away with a shake of her head. But her bloodshot eyes, those lingering seconds, the sadness and shame is clear.

He thinks she's thinking of _him_.

"Addie, it's —"

"Do you really think so little of me? Am I just another number to you?" she tries to hide the tear that falls down her cheek, but he sees it.

"You're _not_ just another number to me.”

"But it doesn't feel like I'm any different than any one of your ..." she shakes her head, "You _use_ me. You come over whenever you want to feel better about yourself. You treat me like I'm some dumpster you can throw all your problems in ... How is that different?" she asks, shrugging her shoulders, "And as I just said it, I realised ... I have been enabling you — I let you treat me the way you do because it feels — it feels _good_ to be noticed and wanted, to be the person you can confide in when you have a shitty day but you don't even do that anymore — you just mess with my head."

Torn about how to respond, she's got it all twisted and wrong, he thinks - he doesn't provide the filter in his head much time to work before he's already gone and shot himself in the foot. "You don't get to make me the bad guy here." His voice is oddly quiet with the declaration. At realising this to be the point of no return, he knows he can't take what he's said back - he wants to, needs to, though.

He's an asshole.

Her head snaps up sharply, nearly breaking off in order to glare at him. "What's that suppose to mean?"

The grit in her voice drives him wild.

He can't hide his annoyance anymore. "You do the same to me too. Only I'm better at tolerating it than you are." Standing now, he points at her roughly. "Do you have any idea how much it sucks to see you with someone else?"

"He's my husband, Mark," she grinds out. "And don't you blame this on me." she's standing up now, stomping her foot too to let him know she can do the same, "Fourteen years ago, remember? I opened myself to you but you didn't —"

"I know. I know. I remember what I said, stop reminding me, Addison. I know I made the biggest mistake of my life," he sighs, as he stares down at her, "But you were still in love with Derek. And you still are ..."

Biting her tongue, he can tell she has to physically stop herself there. There's more she wants to say but can't bring herself to express.

"I know that you love him more than you love me. I know that he's the perfect guy for you and I'm not. I know you won't get a divorce even though this marriage is killing you — well, the both of you —"

“Mark —"

"Wait," Waving his hands around, he viciously runs them over his face, exasperated. "Please just hear me out."

She drops back down to the couch and curls her palm over her jumping knee, closes her eyes, and tries to breathe.

“I know I'm not the perfect guy. I know you're sorry you met me. I know you hate me — well, I actually kind of hate myself a lot of the time too," he chuckles, "But when I'm with you, I, don't hate myself. I like being around you, and I don't know if I ever told you that in so many words, so I'm telling you now. I'm not sorry that I met you. I'm not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything I thought I knew about myself, that you're the one who's made me feel most alive —"

She shakes her head adamantly, cupping both of her palms over her ears. "Stop it, stop it —" but his hands reaches to hold her arms down to her sides, gripping too gently as he slides his palms down the length of her skin until he's at her wrists and able to sew his fingers in with hers, "I am a terrible person. I've made all the wrong choices and of all the choices that I've made this will prove to be the worst one, but I am not sorry that I'm in love with you. I love you, Addison. It's so horrible. Because, really, I'd die for you. I'd trade places with _Jesse_, so you and Derek will be happy again. I love you. I love you so much it's killing me."

With her red hair and bright eyes, he loves her with everything in him. He thinks he could love her forever. And it wasn't supposed to be like this. Everything just got out of hand. He was never supposed to hurt her.

Her eyes wells up with tears, she blinks to let them fall in torrents. He's too close to her - she can count the lines in his eyes, and taste the alcohol in his breath_ (or is it her breath?)_ his tears are dripping onto her skin too. It's all too much so she wretches herself out of his hold, pushes herself away. "No ..." she breathes out, as if she'd been punched in the gut. "You've gone too far, Mark. You've gone too far." she repeats, poking a pointed finger at his chest, "You haven't heard a word I said. You never listen.”

He's still messing with her head.

She goes back up to her feet, then points towards the foyer, "You need to go. You need to leave." she orders, in disbelief of all that's transpired. “Now!”

“I didn't ask for any of this."

"Neither did I." 

"Red —"

She turns her back on him and buries a hand in her hair, digs her nails into her scalp.

"I understand ... but I just don't want to see _this_ happen again," he says, his voice suddenly at her back, his chest brushing her shoulder as he snags her wrist, gentle but firm, and he exposes the snowy white scar, peeking out from beneath her sleeve. "I never meant to hurt you, Addison."

It's like it's déjà vu and she's transported back to his dorm room in 1991, twenty-four and angry and hating herself so much, and for a split second, everything stills in the whirlwind of her mind, and she's torn between the secret thrill that the confirmation had been real all along, that she truly had not imagined those three words eight letter he whispered to her fourteen years ago, and the urge to bite out that she didn't ask for that _(the genesis of this catastrophe.)_ either.

She opens her mouth as if to say something, but nothing voices.

And she's still not sure how it happened; one moment he was standing there, helplessly staring, and the next, they're skin-to-skin and as soon as he's touching her _(or she's touching him) _she's lost.

_Literally and certifiably lost._

Her lips are on his too, bruising more than kissing _(everything is different now, __she's the one who initiated for a change, which means she __can't blame everything on him anymore. there is no going back from this.) _and biting until she tastes something metallic on her tongue and it's blood.

_Oh, God, its blood!_

She doesn't look at him, doesn't dare open her eyes. She can't bare it. _Guit. Guilt_. She's been fooling herself all this time, but not really, she knows. She wants him so much. _No. No. _She's being more selfish than she's ever been in her entire life. _Ever. Ever._

But it doesn't matter.

As soon as she presses her back roughly against the wall and pulling him with her, it doesn't matter.

As soon as he moves his hand under her dress, fingers caressing creamy thighs, it doesn't matter.

As soon as she hears that low groan against the shell of her ear when she runs manicured fingers over the front of his pants, it doesn’t matter.

As soon as she braces herself against the wall as Mark positions his knee between her legs, rubbing against her, it doesn’t matter. 

As soon as her teeth sinks over the tendons of his neck as she quietens a moan, it doesn't matter.

It doesn’t matter that what they’re doing is still illegal.

Nothing fucking matters anymore.

She's clinging to him and it's for all the wrong reasons.

_(but she's finally, _finally_ putting something on top of _it_ and she welcomes the all-encompassing mess, that she knows she's made for herself.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed this Maddek Madness.
> 
> This is an AddisonDerekMark fanfic. More Addison and Derek to come in the next chapter.
> 
> I’d appreciate it if you guys could leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.
> 
> Thank you once again for reading.


	4. 2005 : the moment in question (1) — jasmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Unhinged**

_ **(** **AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**2005 : the moment in question (1)**

** _jasmine_ **

-:-

_"This world can only give me reminders of what I don't have, can never have, didn't have for long enough."_

_— _ _Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island_

* * *

She hates the smell of jasmine.

Jasmine is cloying. Jasmine lingers. Jasmine is just downright cruel. Jasmine overstays her welcome like an unwanted guest she wants so desperately out of her house, but can't seem to kick out because she doesn't want to seem rude.

Jasmine makes her brain pound and pierce and burn in the confines of her own skull. Sometimes she can even feel her head blazing up on fire. And not the good, stimulating kind of '_on fire' _that she thrives on, relies a little too much on these days.

It's all that's keeping her going, really.

Because she means it in the literal painful sense.

Jasmine is not a scent she was ever fond of, too.

_No._

**xxx**

He pulls his lips away and they're breathing hard. He can't stop looking. His eyes are locked on her mouth to see _Satan _smirking back at him._ It _looks beautiful, and_ her_ face looks beautiful too, though faintly bruised and flecked with a flush, smirking with intelligence up at him. He wants her badly but he holds still, breathing, longing, waiting.

_Wanting._

He wants. He wants so much. It's a strange feeling. _Why? _He's been wanting her for the better part of _almost_ two decades — as medical students, as interns until she _really_ _really_ became his best friend's fiancée, his wife _(because there was always this part of him that deliriously believed that that day would never come)_ and the mother of his Godson and then, he — well, he just had to stop ... _wanting_.

He had to move on.

He stopped their antics altogether when she became a mother. He stopped teasing her that she'd chosen the wrong blue-eyed boy when they got married.

Like he said, he stopped it all.

_"I'm starting to notice a pattern here, Mark. Does Addison ever respond to your advances?"_

_"No. Not really."_

_"Does it feel like the more she pulls away, the more you end up wanting her?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Well, this type of — response isn't uncommon. This is partly due to our vanity and self-esteem, and partly due to our warped sense of their value. The less someone responds or reciprocates to one's advances, the more perceived value the pursuer thinks this person has. We start to place more value on them than we do ourselves. But if someone isn't being honest with you, Mark, they simply aren't worth your time."_

He also might have neglected to mention that Addison is married.

_"You don't understand. I know she feels something, too."_

_"What makes you think that?"_

_"I just do."_

_"But what you need to do is stop chasing something you cannot have, Mark. _ _In reality, their perceived value is all in your head, and you're better off pursuing people who actually respect you enough to be honest with you."_

And he listened.

He did. For years, he listened and followed his psychiatrist to stop wanting Addison because she's not his to want. He did. He really did. Because for years their relationship was strictly platonic, almost_ brother-sisterly_. Scarily so for so long that it had surprised him as to how easily he could make himself switch _it_ off.

But truthfully, he never really actually stopped. It's easier said than done, of course. It's there, always present. He just hid _it_ ruefully to the back of his mind all these years.

It's such a strange feeling with _her_, not new to him but _unfamiliar_. Maybe because it's Addison. She's a sensation he wouldn't ever allow himself to give into so easily; it'd hurt too much if he had. He doesn't trust himself not to go too far, to mess things up.

"Why?" she questions, and suddenly the smirk on her face doesn't seem quite so happy, doesn't seem quite so delighted as he had hoped. _Seen_. There's tension there, a twitch at the edge of her lips and a wrinkle between her eyebrows. She looks so tired, so worried and he feels the joy he'd felt a moment ago slip away from him, just a bit.

"I just do. I can't help it."

He steps even closer, bringing a hand up to her hip, and pulling her close in a gesture that no best friend should ever make towards his wife. It feels too intimate, like the movements of a lover.

"At least I can let you know what it means to never know what the other person truly wants from you, what they're truly giving." he touches, traces the line at the blood pumping up her neck and he leans down then and kisses her cheek and something about the movement must have snapped her out of whatever thoughts she was lost in because she turns immediately.

_Surprised. Scared. Skittish._

He isn't quite sure of the chain of events, isn't quite sure how it all happened, from start to _where-they-are-right-now_ but suddenly she is the one kissing him and it's Addison, the aggressor, pressing him back against the edge of the table and she's clawing at him with sharp talons, suddenly an insatiable animal and sex and death and blood all rolling together and he can't tell where one ends and the next begins.

Death has always been this fundamental thing, part of the fabric of his reality. Their reality. It's so wrapped up in the other physical pleasures that it makes sense now, makes sense that this should turn so sexual, that the connection with Addison should feel so right in this moment.

They're not having sex, not in the way that he is familiar with. They're doing something sexual and there's skin and lips and tongue and teeth and pressure and friction. There's the smell of blood in the room, on the road with screeching tyres, the heat in the room overwhelming in a way it hadn't ever been.

She is pressing him back and he's letting her and somehow she feels so big and so much stronger than he is and it is not the Addison that he knows but it's an exciting creature, a new creature, one that he wants to get to know immediately.

She bites her lip and he straightens, lifting the weight from his elbow and trying to move away from the table a bit. She presses a palm against his chest and Mark stills. He's not scared of her; he's not scared of this version of her, even though he doesn't know this person, never seen her like this.

He's worried, though.

* * *

**. . . 1998 . . .**

* * *

The bed is too cold when he wakes.

Blindly, his hand reaches out for the familiar warmth of Addison's body, her soft curves and sleepy smile beside him. Instead, his hands settle upon cold, empty blankets, and not her. He pauses for a moment, trying to clear his sleep-muddled mind, but drawing up blanks as to where she could be.

He turns to the clock to find it reads past four in the morning. _Strange_. She hasn't been awake at this hour in a long, long time.

So he pulls back the covers with a sigh, shivering when his feet come into contact with the bare floor. He quickly pulls his shirt over his head and heads out of the room.

The sight he finds should not be as breathtaking as it is.

She's bathed in the half-light of the morning, catching the golden tones in her air, casting shadows from her long eyelashes and casting a silhouette of her perfect curves. She's sitting upon a stool at the island, eating spoonfuls of peanut butter with a hand atop her ever-growing stomach. It's all so so simple. But he supposes the simplicity of it all is what makes it beautiful because Addison has always been beautiful without even trying, but now this is his. Addison Montgomery Shepherd is here, with him, and she wants this as much as he does.

Without saying a word he crosses the room until he's behind her, wrapping arms around her so that his large hands rest on her stomach, pressing a kiss into her hair. She doesn't startle, acting as though she has been expecting him all along.

She probably has.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asks her gently.

With a sigh, she rests her head back onto his chest, relaxing into him. "No," she sighs, "The little bugger's been playing football with my organs all night."

He runs a comforting hand across her stomach, wishing he could soothe the pain. "So, you came out here to eat peanut butter?"

He feels her scowl, but she giggles. "I had the strangest need for peanut butter, okay. Besides, baby settles down easier when I'm sitting up."

"And you couldn't sit up in bed?"

"Well, I wanted peanut butter too, so I got up," she says as though it's simple.

He sighs. "You should've just woken me up," he tells her, raising one hand to brush her hair to one side, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck, "I would've gotten the peanut butter for you myself."

"I'm pregnant, Derek, not crippled," she tells him, craning her neck slightly to look back at him. "You don't need to coddle me."

"I want to coddle you." he sulks, forcing his lower lip out.

She laughs brightly, straining upwards slightly to kiss him gently, reaching back to run a hand through the short hair on the nape of his neck. The small action warms his heart. He always cherishes these moments, because his dreams are no longer dreams, but a reality.

He's going to be a father.

He's going to have a son. And it's all so wonderful.

"Here."

She guides one of his hands lower on her stomach, and he suddenly feels something protruding her skin, sharp. He gasps, overwhelmed as he glances down at her.

"Is that —?"

"The baby." she supplies when he's at a loss for words, yet again, grinning because his happiness is infectious. "Yeah."

"Oh, Addie."

He's not quite sure what to do with himself. He's so overwhelmed with love and happiness that he's lost all ability to function. But Addison seems to understand, turning the stool around so that she's face-to-face with him and pulls him to stand between her legs, cupping his face with her hands. His own hands raise to wrap around her wrists, squeezing lightly.

"I love you, Derek," she tells him softly, smiling, eyes bright. "I love you and our baby."

* * *

Jasmine is the summer day, warm and sticky hot when she had been persuaded — no, _coerced_ by one of her father's most trusted colleague/best-friend-since-college to follow him into the pantry after she had been playing in the pool with Archer and some of the neighbourhood kids. They were all about to play catch but she wanted to get something to drink from the kitchen first because it was so bloody hot.

Jasmine is the hurt she felt, the confusion of its veracity _(Did it really happen? Or was her mind playing games?)_, the betrayal of her trust, her parents' too, and that flash of anger she wasn't able to control later that night as she laid in bed with his words wringing around her neck like a hanging noose, squeezing too tightly.

_"Don't tell your parents, alright, sunshine? _ _They won't understand our little game. _ _You're a special little girl. _ _This will just be between you and I. _ _Our secret. _ _Shh ..."_

She was a special little girl — _yes_, because he never touched her with his hands. Not where it mattered. She remembered laboured breaths in her ear and pain shooting up her spine as she choked on noises. Her heart started to ache so bad she thought it was breaking. She knew at that moment that she did something so terribly wrong, but she did nothing, only stood stock still until he was done.

She feels nauseated now.

It's being taken away from the too-fucking-bright lights in the coldly uncomfortable, and tormenting hospital room, that overlooked the flowery garden and being shuffled into unfamiliar quarters full of hard mahogany boxes and even harder floors.

_"Would you prefer steel? We also provide wood and other materials such as fibreglass and recycled kraft paper. Since there is emerging interest in eco-friendly versions, we also have options in bamboo, X-broad, willows or banana leaf. All of which are of pure natural materials."_

_"Nancy. I can't — I can't listen to this. I don't want to be here — please. Please."_

_"Okay, honey. Amy?"_

She still feels nauseated.

The looks on the faces of her nurses reminded her too much of the _'good'_ china she used to fling across the kitchen whenever she'd get into a screaming match with Bizzy. She did it not out of anger or frustration, mostly. She did it to seek a reaction out of her mother because that seemed to be the only way to get Bizzy to really _really_ look at her and see. _See. See, Mommy._ _Can't you see me?_ — the plates would say with each throw. She did it because she became addicted to watching the delicate dinnerware shatter into pieces as they hit the wall. It was like watching her entire life ruin right in front of her.

It was beautiful.

It was like knowing exactly how the story of her life will end.

No surprises. No scares. Just brief happiness.

It was like watching her twelve-year-old self desperately trying to reign in the control of her life once again as she tried to pull away the fingers on her throat and the panting against her cheek.

_Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve._

Hot tears that threatened to burn her skin right off her bones as she thrashed for air, but he held her longer, held her there until her fingernails scraped at him, panicking, instinctively scratching and he held her until her panic _almost_ took over. He stopped, let go, and then, she was gasping and wheezing panicked breaths.

* * *

**. . . 1999 . . .**

* * *

"Oh, no, you guys did not," she says in stunned disbelief, hands on her hips as she takes in the sight before her.

Derek stands grinning at the island, hands wrapped around the real pumpkin that their eleven-month-old son, Jesse, is currently sitting in, hands clutching the rim of the pumpkin with his feet sticking out of the small holes Derek and Mark had carved.

_(It's Jesse's first Halloween and that's why they're throwing a party. Otherwise, they wouldn't. She wants him to have all his firsts documented whether or not he'll remember them.)_

Jesse stares at her with his big blue eyes, something in them looks like confusion.

_Oh, her poor baby._

"It was Mark's idea. It was all him. Not me." her husband exclaims all in one breath, ready to dump all the blame on his best friend.

"Thanks, man," Mark says to him before turning towards her, "Red," he whines, "C'mon. He's so cute. Isn't this the best Halloween costume ever?"

"No." she grinds out, heading towards the kitchen island. "It's not and just so you know, I am _never_ leaving the two of you alone at home with Jesse ever again."

"Hey, hey. Never say never." Mark says, rushing around to stand in front of what he's dubbed a masterpiece, palms raised. "Don't make rash decisions. Just look. Just take a moment to appreciate the cuteness of the costume. You gotta admit —"

"C'mon, Addie," Derek cuts in, "It actually is quite adorable."

"Derek. I'm currently taking a moment to think whether or not you should be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight."

"Sorry, man. I tried," he slaps Mark on the chest before turning to lift Jesse out of the pumpkin.

Mark continues to pout instead.

"C'mon, Addie, at least let me put him back in it when everyone arrives for the party?" he asks, frowning and batting his eyes in pity. "You know he's really the only nephew I'll ever have. You guys are _my_ only family."

She sighs, running a hand through her hair.

_Of course, he's playing the pity party card._

Her hesitation to answer seems to be a good enough sign to both Mark and Derek, who then moves away from the island, allowing her to get a closer look at Jesse in the pumpkin. His chubby legs kicking freely from the holes, grinning toothlessly at the pair of them.

_Okay. Maybe it is kind of cute._

"Only when they arrive. He is not staying in that pumpkin all night," she says, looking from Derek, who nods with a thumbs up, to Mark as he cheers, "Oh, you are the best, Red." and places a chaste kiss to her cheek.

Jesse gurgles happily in his pumpkin.

* * *

"His life is worth more — _was_ worth more," Mark speaks softly, no reason to be loud in the quiet of her living room, with his lips so close to her ear. But she doesn't want to hear him at all, hear _that —_ of all the things she has no control over, has in no way of changing whatsoever, of everything she already has, still have pent up in her head, her heart, and everything she knows is true.

Because — of course, his life was worth more than anything and anyone in this world.

To her, it was.

She pulls back with a frustrated grunt, rolling her eyes as she does, but she's far too tired to feel angry right now, so she chooses to just put some distance between them before she goes gratifying her urge to hurt him. Rolling over to her side, she briefly glances at her peripheral vision to see Mark looking at her with the faintest crease of concern across his brows and the display just makes her feel _angrier_, more infuriated by the sudden mention of her son.

"Can we _please_ not talk about him, Mark ... _Please_," she emphasises on the last word tiredly as she pushes herself off the couch. She's unsteady on her feet, blood rushing to her legs but she hides it well enough, she thinks.

His words don't match the tone in which he says them at all and his face is just as unreadable. "His life is worth more than _mine_ —"

"_Mark —_" She cuts him off with a warning tone and grits her teeth. "Stop."

She doesn't understand why he's being so selfish in bringing up her son right now.

"I —"

He feels guilty, still. Forever, perhaps.

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" she says and it really doesn't. She knows what he's going to say. It's all _they_ ever say like time travel is even remotely possible.

_What's the point of even bringing him up?_

She pushes away the hand gripping her wrist, moving into the kitchen to take another wine glass from the cabinet and she pours herself the last of the bottle still out on the countertop. She hears Mark follow her but she doesn't turn to acknowledge him, just lifts the glass to her lips and swallowing a mouthful. She's had a few glasses now, not drunk enough as she'd hope to be, but warm, the edges of things a little hazy now.

Her tolerance is absolutely atrocious that she's not sure whether she ought to be impressed or disgusted with herself.

"I just thought —" he pauses and sighs, "Addie, I didn't mean to upset you, okay. I don't know why I brought it up. I shouldn't have and I'm sorry." she turns and sees him, arms folded and leaning his hip against the doorway.

He tilts his head at her.

"What? Do you want me to say _'aw, t__hank you for saying that'_, want me to play into something?"

"Play into _what_?" his voice sounds strained, and he looks so ... soft. _Hurt_. And for the briefest flicker of a moment, she somehow feels sorry for him.

Just for a moment, though.

"I don't know," the intensity of her own voice startles her and she feels anger, rage at his insolence for speaking of her son when Derek and her hardly ever brings him up _anymore_.

_Ever_.

It's silently agreed that they shouldn't.

Because it just further breaks her heart — thinking about Jesse. So, she tries to remember the things that made her happy. But it's a vicious cycle because she doesn't remember a time when she was happy and her son wasn't there to be the reason why. He was the one who brought brightly coloured lights and smiles and laughter and butterflies and everything beautiful in this world to her life. Nothing _can_ compare or _will_ ever top those five years she had with her darling boy.

She gets ... _sad_ afterwards, because she can't be happy, isn't allowed to ever again and suddenly, she would find her whole days blending together to create one endless and suffocating loop like it is right now.

A loop. She's back to where she started this evening.

She doesn't want to feel _sad_ anymore. It's a tiring feet. _Exhausting_. It's depleting her will to get up in the morning and sometimes she just lies there and does nothing at all since there's no point in doing so because every time she gets out into the world, she feels like there is no more air left for her. And she'd be gasping, and panicking and people would gawk at her with contempt and the knowing look that she can't hide from forever.

The world knows and they see her for the fraud she really is.

It happens a few times over the years, where she'd be so drain of life that she'd stare at the ceiling for hours on end without getting out of bed. Even to go to the bathroom, let alone the hospital. She stare up at the ceiling, thinking of that one mystery place she had never seen before, and she'd remember when she held _him_ for the first time.

There would be no comfort, no solace in the vast emptines, but she wants it to swallow her whole, nevertheless. She wants a life without death. She wants love without pain. She wants time to go back and start again. Sometimes, her mind just wants a break, though. Sometimes, her mind stares up at the ceiling until the phone rings in a courtesy call by Chief. But even then, oftentimes, she would not make a move, to the point where Derek has to come back home and force _venlafaxine_ down her throat because there are sick babies counting on her.

She wouldn't let another child die because of her.

Not again.

And after that, she'd feel ... _better_ as though everything will be alright. But that's only because the _venlafaxine_ was doing its job in blocking the reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine in her brain.

She'll be able to function 'normally'.

The real deep-seated emptiness, the cause of her pain will still be there, a tease, throbbing like an open wound and that's the absolute worst part of being _sad_. Because even though she knows she is sad, she's unable to stop herself from getting any worse.

_Always and forever._

She steps closer, crowding up against Mark.

She hates the brain. _Hers_. Her unforgiving brain and her intrusive thoughts. She hates her _brain_ for ever doing this to her; she's been sad every day for the past two years and she doesn't know how to make it stop.

Nothing works.

She puts her glass somewhere down, stalking across the floor, pushing up against Mark, pressing him against the doorframe so much so that his shoulders are forced back on either side. It cannot be comfortable. He looks down at her, looking vulnerable and yet she doesn't believe it, not for a moment.

"Well, then," he begins — and there it is, she was right —that cocky bastard smirks at her as though the last five minutes hasn't happened, "Where were we?"

They're moving against each other and he can feel her fingers loosen his tie and pull at his shirt buttons and he lets her or takes it, something that might signify some shift in power if either of them were to read into what they let themselves do so naturally.

"Somewhere —" she curls close to him, lets her own fingers twist a lock of hair at the nape of his neck, lets her ankle hook around his calf and kissing his collarbone. "About —" The time for clinical distance is long past. They're glued like the lovers they have always been and have yet to become. "Here." she breathes over his lips, lips close enough that they are sharing a breath.

She glances up and sees Mark watching her, smiling and looking somehow tired, fatigued. Perhaps he's tired from lack of sleep or perhaps he's merely exhausted from lying. She knows how tiring keeping up a facade can be. So, she presses her lips against his first, again the initiator, gets herself lost in the taste and feel of this man, hands clinging to him, lips moving against lips and tongues chasing tongues. He is hard and her body is tight against his, leaving him no room, no escape.

_Desperation._

It is a hot press of lips against lips, more forceful than tender.

He does not kiss her back.

She kisses his lips, his cheek, his pulsing carotid. She pays special attention to his neck, grazing it softly with her teeth.

Still, he hovers.

"Kiss me," she whimpers up at him, feeling empty all the while, her tone urgent.

She just needs to hurt.

She refrains from adding '_please_' just yet.

He touches her face with reverent fingers and she regards him with heavy-lidded eyes. "I almost feel sorry for you," he mutters so softly that she almost misses the words.

"_Please_."

She gives in.

Then, just like that, he kisses her softly and pulls her closer and closer to him. His lips parts, letting her in and she tastes beer, wine, the bitterness of the whiskey, warmth and something earthy. Everything in her body responds to Mark, and she hears herself screaming.

He doesn't exactly move any further from where they are standing, can't quite line up true desire in his heart and head, so he tries not to think, tries to focus on how aggressive her kisses now seem, how wild and alive she suddenly feels.

It’s like there a switch.

Addison bucking against him and scratching at him; she is on top and pressing down on his arms and for a moment, he isn't quite so sure that overpowering her would be as easy as he has thought it would be up until now.

The siding digs into his back and he doesn't care that it hurts. Addison's mouth moves over his chin, trailing kisses down to his neck. He moans, his voice sounding too loud as it cuts through the still quiet of the night. Head falling back, tilting to the side as she sucks a maddening bruise into his neck.

He feels her fingers creeping around his throat and for a moment he hopes Addison would produce a real knife, so she can end all _this_. Instead, she moves to his side, turning his face and kissing him again. Her fingertips trace under his jaw and along the column of his throat; grasping, she squeezes harder, tighter ... gentler even, eyes glinting.

She feels him twitch a little then, but she holds him as she counts the seconds, knows how long it will take for him to run out of the air and need to breathe. But she holds him there longer and longer than necessary, holds him until his large hands goes up to grip her wrists.

It's the natural flight or fight response that she sees — _panic_ — but he doesn't shove her away or scrape at her or pull the hand obstructing his airway.

He does nothing at all, just looks at her. He waits, like he trusts her not to kill him.

His eyes glitter a bit in the dull light, fighting the urge to gasp and spasm around her, to get free and she licks the desperate gasps from his mouth.

He's letting her.

_Surely Addison wouldn't choke him to death, right?_

But the seconds drags on, and his lungs begins to burn. He can feel his diaphragm starting to spasm as the urge to breathe grow stronger and stronger, as does the corresponding throb in between his legs. His other hand splays wide on the wall behind him, scrabbling for purchase as he grows red.

Though he's mostly confused on what the hell's happening right now.

"Addison. I — I can't breathe."

And all she hears is:

_"Uncle Harry, I — I can't breathe."_

He sinks into the clawing pain in his lungs as they are denied air. _Oxygen is brought into the lungs via breathing, where it is transported by red blood cells to the entire body to be used to produce energy_, he thinks to himself, recalling a passage from a medical textbook. Except right now, when oxygen is denied to travel into his lungs via Addison, that mad, beautiful and sometimes cruel angel whose long pianist's fingers are currently engaged in the task of depriving him of oxygen — _and what for?_

He hasn't a clue. He doesn’t do kinky.

Mark squirms, just a little, feeling awkward and exposed. This is weird, this whole thing is pretty weird, and he is beginning to feel really uncomfortable and conscious but — _God_, his body's reaction to ... _this_ is telling a different story.

"Addie ..." he tries, and it comes out as barely more than a breathy whisper.

The pain in his chest swells to a crescendo, body crying out for air. Amidst his thrashing and the rising desperate thirst for oxygen, Mark doesn't think to wonder at that. He doesn't think to wonder about anything at all — not whether he is fucked up for falling in love with his best friend's wife, not whether this is the most stupid, dangerous, fucked up thing he's ever done in his entire life. And he’s done his fare share of stupid, dangerous and fucked up. Every thought is stripped away until he is pinpoint focused on the pure, clean desire to breathe.

Addison puts her face right up against his and inhales, breathing deep and letting her eyes fall closed. He tries to surge forward to capture her lips with his own, but a firmer squeeze on his throat thwarts him, pushes him back against the wall. He is half hard already, and a thrill of shame shocks through him, and he moans.

"Tell me to stop." At just her voice, a jolt of heat shoots straight to his groin again and that feels better than it has any right to.

He doesn't tell her to stop.

He doesn't want her to.

It feels like they've been here for hours, so long that Mark deliriously thinks that he's forgotten what it is like to really breathe. His world is narrowed down to the points of contact where Addison's skin touches his, to the minuscule breaths that she allows him to take.

It's interesting how desperately the body can crave something so simple as air. So simple it goes unnoticed most of the time, just until he can't have it. And then he doesn’t want anything else so badly as he wishes to breathe right now. Money, power, sex ... none of them is as all-consuming as the want for oxygen.

He can't breathe unless she allows it — this might just be the single hottest thing that has ever happened to him in his entire life, and Addison is still fully clothed and barely even touching him.

"You know you can struggle, right."

It continues to hurt, and he struggles. He keeps his eyes on her the whole time, though, and it feels like her chilly eyes are boring into his soul.

He's flying on endorphins now. The body's chemical solution to pain, euphoria brought on by hypoxia.

She runs a thumb over his cheek, and it comes away wet.

He didn't realise he had been crying.

Addison smiles, a ghost of a thing. It was hardly an emotion. She presses a chaste kiss that feels like a benediction against his temple. "Do you want me to stop?" is the last thing he hears before he desperately shakes his head_ (no, no, please, don't, don't stop) _hears nothing but the muted, distorted sounds of himself crying out.

_He's so close._

He starts to squirm again, though not from embarrassment this time but from genuine pain. He turns his head from side to side, somehow trying to find a way to sneak some air in, but her hands remains firmly clamped over his throat.

It is too much this time, much too much. It feels like drowning. Drowning in Addison's eyes, in the indeterminate blue-green of them. It feels like being utterly taken apart and laid bare, and just as black spots are starting to swim in his vision and his chest threatens to explode, her hands are gone, off his throat, and he gasps for breath. And then, he can't breathe because her mouth is on his, and her hand reaches down to press hard against his erection. She grounds the heel of her palm against it once, twice, and then, he’s coming harder than he has ever in his whole life.

It's biological — oxygen deprivation and the chemical cocktail of orgasm — but it feels like fireworks. Stars burst behind his eyes as he kisses desperately at Addison's mouth with tongue and lips and so much teeth, before he has to break away for air.

He feels so boneless that it's a surprise he's still even standing.

As soon as he’s drawn some small measure of oxygen into his lungs, he dives back in and recaptures her mouth, pressing messy, open-mouthed kisses into it, licking into corners of her lips and chasing her tongue. It turns languorous and lazy, but everything about this kiss is pure sex.

_Addison._

This is the same Addison he knew for decades, the one who is married to his best friend. The one who used to make Derek and him watch Audrey Hepburn in the weekends. The one who dragged him up to his father's office so they could mend their forever-broken relationship. The one who would take him to Bergdorf’s when he’s feeling low. The one who fixed other’s issues but never her own. The same one who'd just given him a mind-blowing orgasm and whispered the filthiest things in his ear.

_How is it even possible that those people are one and the same?_

They kiss until he remembers he is supposed to be irritated at her for ... _this, _even if he liked it.

He pulls away.

This is certainly the worst he has ever felt _after_ an orgasm.

“I just —”

"— what was that?"

_Oh, he is going to hell for this._

* * *

**. . . 2003 . . .**

* * *

_"Jesse!"_

Addison regrets her exclamation the moment the word leaves her mouth as she watches their son startle, scattering the pinch of spice he has been sprinkling over _a cup_.

A _hot_ cup of coffee, nonetheless.

They thought he was playing in his room as he usually does in the mornings, keeping himself busy before they, themselves, can make their way downstairs. They were not expecting to find him here, in the kitchen, kneeling on a high chair and busying himself with making them their morning coffee.

_Hot_ morning coffee, she has to rephrase.

"What did we tell you about hot beverages?" Addison says, still watching her son with wary disappointment.

"Papa drinks cappuccino with nutmeg on top and Mama drinks espresso," Jesse explains at once, "Papa told me already," he adds after seeing the full-blown confusion plastered on her face.

She turns to look at Derek then, and finds him smiling proudly, pursing his lips together to hide a chuckle.

"It's all right, Addie," he says softly, a gentle hand to her shoulder to quail her stern gaze burning through him, and points to the counter.

Addison looks past their son and only now notices that Derek's usual elaborate coffee syphon has been replaced by the automatic coffee maker, requiring nothing but a capsule _'pod' _and a press of a button. She relaxes slightly and allows herself half a smile because he's sacrificing the quality of his coffee for Jesse's safety. Still, she steps closer, making sure he has not somehow burned himself.

"Did you make coffee for yourself too?" she teases him after the inspection proves satisfactory, now taken by their son's commitment.

"Ew, no, Mama," he frowns in disgust. "Coffee tastes yucky."

Amused, Addison leans forward to press a kiss to his forehead. "Thank you, baby. For the coffee."

"You feel hot, Mama," he says, eyes inspecting her closely, the intensity of his gaze already so very much like his father's, "And your cheeks are red, too."

"Is it that bad?" she asks as his little hand reaches out to touch her skin.

"No, you look pretty. You always look pretty," the boy asserts at once, "Is it because you slept so well next to Papa?"

She smiles into her cup, "Yes, it is," she responds simply, giving her husband a knowing side glance.

_Yes, it so is why._

Derek looks as pleased as a peach.

They have not been sleeping for over half an hour.

Their son's scrutinising stare now shifts to rest on Derek. "You should put on a shirt, Papa. You could catch a cold," he states matter-of-factly and Addison now has to press her lips to suppress a chuckle.

"Nevermind Papa's shirt, baby. Would you like Papa to make you cocoa?" she asks instead, before walking to sit on the other side of the counter, taking her cup of coffee with her.

"Yes, please!" Jesse's face lights up instantly and he scrambles in his spot to get off the chair.

But the way down proves to be more difficult than the way up as he shuffles on his knees, trying to find the best leverage. Derek comes to his rescue at once, lifting his tiny frame without difficulty and placing him on the floor. He is about to turn towards the refrigerator but Jesse's firm stare keeps him in place. He bends down and kisses the top of his head, earning him a satisfied grin.

Small feet now march to the other side of the counter and begin to climb the chair next to her, recent difficulty in getting down already forgotten. But before he could reach the seat, she pulls him over to sit with her.

"My baby is getting so big. Soon I won't be able to lift you anymore," she says as her son settles himself on her lap. His fingers reaches out to her cup to remove the sprinkling of spice he had carelessly dusted over the saucer when she startled him. For lack of a better option, he wipes his hands on his pyjama top, covering the green frogs with brown goop.

"That's okay. Papa can carry us both," Jesse declares with confidence, looking at the saucer, making sure he has removed all the powder before inspecting his hands.

He does not bother with the state of his pyjamas, though.

"Always," Derek inclines his head in agreement, smiling widely and watching as Addison adjusts her son's unruly locks_ (he definitely got Derek's curls)_ with her fingers. His eyes move slowly, studying every detail of them and memorising each line. She knows she will find him in the study later, working on yet another drawing of them.

"Do you want to watch Papa prepare breakfast for us?" she asks Jesse, putting the last strand in place behind his ear.

"Yes!" he shifts excitedly on Addison's lap, his eyes now focusing fully on his father in anticipation of the show.

Derek does not want his audience to be disappointed, so he moves at once, getting the milk and eggs from the refrigerator and turning on the stove.

"But you should wear a shirt first, Papa," Jesse advises again, watching the burners come to life,

"The fire is very hot. You could get burn."

* * *

_"I am so sorry, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd. I am so very sorry."_

She remembers feeling shocked to feel such pure fury, such hatred.

_Why was she so angry? Whom she was so angry at?_

It, anger, clawed at her heart. It burned inside her, filled her with something bitter, something awful, something so unforgiving, but there was a sense of clarity in it too.

She hated herself so much. So much so that the anger kept her awake at night sometimes.

_"Why?" _ _she asked quietly. All alone in the dark. Her voice sounded strained and rough, course. It was all her fault._

Derek blames her.

Everyone knows and everyone is watching her_._

Gone is her beloved nurse, with her apple round cheeks and strong arms. Gone his favourite toy trains and puzzles, and little hands that nudge her when she would fall asleep in the middle of story-time. Everything is gone, slowly but surely, replaced by heavy volumes of silence and boxes and boxes of memories that are stored in the attic.

They're still in the attic.

Gone are what mattered to her the most. Her family. Her son. Her husband.

Gone her safety. Gone her control. Gone her childhood.

* * *

**. . . 2000 . . .**

* * *

"Hey! What are you guys doing here?" she asks as she watches Derek step off of the elevator with Jesse flying ahead of him towards her, dressed in matching father-and-son polo shirts.

_So, girls aren't the only one who plays dress-up._

She catches her boy with a smile, hugging him tightly. "Came to see you, Mama!" her two-year-old cries ecstatically, lisp evident in his speech .

She pulls the boy up to her hip. It's been a hectic week for both of them, with her fellowship and all, she has not been home much. Derek and she haven't had more than five minutes alone together all week because when she gets home, it's his turn for his shift. It's going to be like this for a while but she doesn't mind it that much. Yet ... she misses her husband and son. Some part of her yearns for another product of them and their love, a playmate for Jesse.

"We were just heading off to the park," Derek explains, cutting through her inner thoughts. "I figured you were due a lunch break and you could come with us."

She grins, unhesitant. "Sure. I'll go get my purse."

* * *

When Derek's and her family and friends tried to comfort her, she shouted for them to leave her alone. They hadn’t been leaving her alone for over a week already.

_"Everyone. Out. Leave. Go!"_

Hastily, they jumped, scurry beneath her wrath. It was a veritable exodus, like passengers of the sinking Titanic running to the lifeboats. And Addison tasted it then, a sip of _power_ she had never tasted. It was sweet, delicious; it tasted more potent than unwatered wine. And for good measure she threw a slipper at any of them; the girl, Derek's sister, Amy, ducked and it collided with the delicately painted antique amphora she purchased from their trip to Greece last summer.

The amphora broke right before her, shattered a scream in its pain. It was a sound she wasn't so sure she had heard correctly.

It couldn't be.

_No. No way._

It was a glass shattering, a broken wince of a mother's pain, whose son had just died, sounding so very loud in the quiet of the room, in the quiet of the place she had finally allowed herself to get lost in.

The amphora cried in agony because its pieces are left shattered and scattered everywhere; it's lost and no one can ever put it back together.

Her hands shook with emotion and she couldn't feel her face. _Numb_. She couldn't feel anything but the empty space in her heart where it used to whole, so full of love and hope and dreams. She can still remember hearing her own heart pounding before the darkness consumed her soul, her mind twisted and turned into devils and nightmares, one that she cannot escape.

It hurts.

It _still_ hurts.

There was a scream perched in her throat. Her hands moved away from her head to press into her mouth and she bit down. She bit hard — hard enough to sink and break skin, to muffle the agonised grumbling from her chest.

Everything is ruined.

She's nauseated once again.

It's still there, deep inside her, the urge to scream, the desperate itch at the base of her throat and she whimpers instead when Mark raises his hand and brushes his fingers against the old scar on her stomach. For once, there is no pain where there should be, used to be. Just warmth.

Warmth and it feels so good.

_Pleasant._

She feels like a puppet when she jerks forward, all wooden and taut strings. She presses her lips to Mark's dry ones, just to get it over with. An apology for what happened early. It was an experiment. The contact is brief, less than a second. A toe in the ocean so to speak.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Mark says but it's like he's not even aware that he has spoken — it's his turn to crowd her against the wall and she arches into him, squeezing the knobs of his shoulders tight.

"It won't matter," she replies. Her voice is low, unfamiliar to her own ears.

Mark frowns, exhaling before he kisses her, longer and deeper this time. It's a strange thing, their mouths pressing, rough and also insistent. Their tongues feel like two matches striking, hot and charged.

There's nothing tentative about it, no assurances or seduction needed and it's not long before her tongue is down his throat, his hand snaring her hair.

In between sharp gasps, their mouths meet, slick and probing. Their jaws and chins rub against each other, and she can feel all the little scratches from his stubble lighting up her skin. Then Mark traces her lower lip with his tongue and Addison decides the difference is not entirely unpleasant, _unnoticeable_. Her stomach is empty, her head pounds and she can't stop herself from wondering if Derek ever thought she would be interested in Mark.

She smells jasmine.

Before long, the amphora's heady perfume seeped into the carpet and up into the space between her lying on the mattress and the ceiling above, deeming the bedroom unbearable. She took to the guest bedroom and when she woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, it was dark and she was all alone like she had demanded to be.

She frowned.

Derek did not come home that night.

* * *

**. . . 2002 . . .**

* * *

It is not something Addison had considered that would ever take a special place in her heart. Until it did, so unexpectedly, slipping pass her armour and settling in like the cordial warmth now permanently residing within her.

The sharp and refreshing scent of fir mingles with the sweet sound of a child's laughter, both kindling her senses in tandem with the crackling fireplace, as her eyes contemplate the picturesque scene unfolding in front of her.

The larger than needed tree fills the middle of the living room while Derek, with their son in his arms, work on decorating it. He holds him steady as eager hands place ornaments on the branches that are higher up on the tree. And as soon as Jesse hangs the last one, Derek turns around to retrieve some more, making their son shriek and giggle at the sudden jolts of movement, tiny arms wrapping around his neck as he lean forward.

A smile appears on her lips as she watches them; she knows Derek would never let go of their son, the same way he has kept her safe all these years.

They return to the tree and Jesse's hands abandon his father's neck, too keen to continue their task of bedazzling the Christmas tree. White stars of various shapes and sizes materialise amongst the vivid green, intricate designs of straw, which they had spent all day yesterday and today making.

Jesse was more than delighted to finally be old enough to make decorations of his own with his cousins and Derek happily shared his family traditions with their son. Now, all of the stars are proudly displayed and hanged on the branches — both Derek's detailed ones and Jesse's smaller ones. Addison's gaze falls onto her own contribution to the tree, the wooden angels she painted together with Jesse last week.

_"They look like us," their son had exclaimed, referring to the red hair of the two finished figures, which promptly encouraged Derek to adapt a new term of endearment, making Jesse laugh and Addison raised an incredulous eyebrow at him._

She knows that this will sound insane but all their trees seems to be growing together with their ever-increasing selection of the ornaments, and getting taller and taller each year as Jesse grows.

_"The tree must be big, so spring will come sooner," he insisted on that at the Christmas tree farm and she nodded and _hmm-ed_ at his own interpretation of the solstice tradition before he explained that it was what he had learned from Mrs. Baker in kindergarten, which made Derek smile and they gave in without protest, unable to deny him anything._

Despite her initial reservations on having the most ginormous tree for Christmas, she finds it rather entertaining, watching Derek and Mark's attempts in bringing the tree inside their home and setting it in the living room.

Now, as the higher branches look festive enough, Jesse makes Derek put him down and turns his attention to the lower tiers. He waves his father away as he stands in his way between the table of decorations and the tree. Addison swallows a chuckle when he retreats to stand beside her.

"Were you this excited for Christmas as a child?" she asks, watching their son dash around the tree with fervour, only pausing briefly to study the placement of new ornaments and making necessary alignments.

"No, not really. I mostly looked forward to opening presents on Christmas morning, like every kid in America," he responds, turning his head to look at her, a knowing smile on his lips. The remaining of the conversation passes silently between their eyes. For all the words they exchanged during the many years they've been together, they had never had much need for them, and have even less now. Derek knows she is reflecting on their son; Jesse might be a part of them, but he is already very much his own person.

"Bizzy used Christmas as an excuse to throw lavish, extravagant parties. Kids were not invited, of course. And the Captain — well, you know, he drinks a lot," Addison says, her voice trailing off as she tilts her head in further contemplation, still watching their son, so much like them and so unlike them all at the same time. "I spent a few Christmases with our housekeeper and her family. I think twice. Bizzy said I was a nuisance so she told Esmeralda to take me with her. They treated me like family. That was when I learned that you don't have to share the same blood to be family."

She wonders if she is able to give Jesse what he needs, not having the same experiences. She wonders if she is enough, or whether or not she will ever be enough.

Derek's fingers gently brush the hair off her cheek as though wanting to whisk her worries away. But her thoughts remain unuttered as Jesse approaches them with a big star in his hands.

"Would you like to put the star on the top, Mama?" he extends the offering towards her.

"Me? Are you sure you don't want to do it yourself?" she asks, taking the star from his grip. The star is more than familiar to her — the first decoration the master of arts and crafts_ (Derek)_ ever made after they moved in to the brownstone all those years ago. The straw ornament is delicate but surprisingly long-lasting, a fitting metaphor for their lives, she thinks.

He nods, "I want you to do it, Mama," he states firmly as he ushers them all closer to the tree.

Addison's gaze flickers towards the high top of the fir, then immediately lands on the step ladder standing by its side that has so far been unused.

"Papa can lift you," Jesse announces factually as he sees her deliberating, a recommendation no doubt based on his own productive time spent in his father's arms.

Derek's eyes light up at once.

"No, thank you," she says quickly, assuring. Dimming his spark at once, just like that. "I can manage on my own."

She pushes the ladder closer and takes a step. The ladder shakes slightly, but once she climbs onto the second board, it remains still; even without looking, she knows Derek is holding it firmly.

Upon having reached the top, she pauses, gazing at the star in her hand; how strange it is to have cultivated holiday customs and cherish them. And she does so with every moment that they get to spend together.

Inhaling and exhaling slowly, she finally puts the star on its assigned spot, on top of the tree, and hears Jesse clap with joy. She tries to shake off her unforeseen nostalgia as she makes her way down, but then, stops a few steps above the ground and leans back ever so slightly. Derek's arms wrap around her waist at once and he holds her close for a brief moment before setting her down gently, both of them smiling. And so is their son, pleased that she took his stellar advice after all.

"You did a wonderful job with the decorations, baby," Addison now turns to Jesse, stroking his hair lovingly, "I think you deserve a treat. Hot chocolate, perhaps?" she adds and Jesse's face beams with relish.

She gathers her son closer as they stand together, admiring the tree. Derek's lips press softly against her temple and he proceeds to whisper words of tenderness in her ear.

"You are everything," his voice vibrates in shivers against her skin. "You are the best thing that happened to me, Addison Montgomery Shepherd."

And she knows that to be true. They need nothing more than to make traditions of their own.

* * *

** _to be continued..._ **


	5. 1989 : a look into the past — beautiful distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Unhinged**

_ **(AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 5**  
**1989 : a look into the past**

** _beautiful distraction_ **

* * *

A tiny twitch appears between his eyebrows each time the knife meets the chopping board; it is barely visible, but it does not escape Addison's attention.

He pretends not to watch her, casting discreet glances while he busies himself with the duck breasts.

"What is it?" she asks finally. Her hand pauses, the knife hovering over the vegetables she has been cutting for dinner.

They had just started dating; it's been a couple of months of pure bliss, everything is going perfect and she just cannot see where and why and how things would ever go south for them. _He’s perfect. He’s a dream. _And he cooks, too. He said he's a great at cooking and had wanted to cook for her, so here he is proving that claim right.

"Am I cutting the carrots wrong or what? Is there a right and wrong way that I don’t know about?"

The dinner that they are preparing together; Derek overseeing the main dish and starter and dessert_ (of course)_, and Addison — well, she's _trying_ to be useful by doing the chopping.

"No, of course not," Derek turns away, but she can still sense the tension in his face. His body is tense that it makes her own nerves taut, tight strings ready to snap at the tiniest wrong note.

"What am I doing wrong?" she presses on, her tone firmer, gaze fixed fiercely on the back of his head. "I must be doing something wrong — because why else would you be all fidgety over there."

"Nothing," he responds at once with a swift turn, coming face to face with her displeased manner. "You're doing nothing wrong, Addie."

A bit too swift of a turn, in Addison's opinion. She puts the knife down and stares at him defiantly.

"I think I'm capable of dicing a few carrots," her fingers presses against the board to prove her set stance.

Derek opens his mouth to respond, but she does not give him a chance.

"We may have had personal chefs growing up, but I do know how to cook, as hard as it might be to believe," the words falls rapidly from her lips. It is an overreaction, she knows it well, but her usual determination takes iron control. And she has never liked to be patronised _(even if her knowledge of cooking is limited to eggs and instant noodles and rice, only if she can get the water to rice ratio right every single time)_.

He does not interrupt her, standing still by the counter, quiet patience in his eyes as he listens to her keenly.

"Unless ..." she says slowly, "Unless you don't want me to be here," she ends her argumentation and her voice loses its bite as she expresses her most hidden thoughts. The things that mean the most to everyone are the most difficult to articulate and it is still hard for her to divulge her feelings at times. She is unwilling to admit how much she enjoys sharing this time and space with him.

Derek's mouth curls up ever so slightly and he tilts his head, his gaze even tenderer now. He does not take his eyes off her; it feels like a balmy caress on her skin, soothing her.

"Addison," he speaks softly, and she feels the agitation being pushed aside and melting on its own accord under his stare. "You know it's not true. I want you here. I’ll always want you to be with me, by my side. Believe me."

She does.

It was his idea to be his sous-chef in the first place.

He abandons his spot and moves to stand next to her. His arm sneaks around her waist and she yields to his touch, the tension in her body vanishing, her argument appearing distant and irrelevant.

"I was just going to say that it might be less tiring for you to cut them julienne," he explains carefully, "It's only a suggestion," smiling, "I'll let you get back to it now," he concludes, and the hand falls away.

_How disappointing._

Addison considers his recommendation, her mind no longer straining to resist the offer. It seems he knows how to manage her stubbornness better that she does.

"Show me," she says, sly and passes the knife to him.

His face lights up with a smile as he steps forward again, taking the knife and a stick of carrot. She watches as he swiftly disposes of the ends, then proceeds to chop the carrot into slices and stack the pieces. His nimble fingers move in tandem with the knife, holding the slices in place and sliding back a little with each cut of the blade, like a perfectly choreographed routine. Thin strips begin to appear on the board. She takes delight in this spectacle, one performed for her alone. It has always been a pleasure to observe him in the kitchen, now even more so, knowing that she is no longer a distant spectator, but shares the stage with him.

She expects him to finish the task, being much quicker than her, but, to her surprise, he stops halfway and gives her back the handle. She takes it with unexpected eagerness, ready to test her new knowledge. His eyes follow her as she finishes slicing the carrot and reaches for the next one, the strips coming to view under her cut as even as his.

"See, isn't that simpler?" he comments, gentle affection pouring from his voice, still mindful of her pride.

"Yeah, it is," she admits without further protest, enjoying the task.

Derek continues to watch her and, as much she tries to disregard his stare, its intensity is hard to ignore.

"I can't continue if you keep staring, Derek," she stops and turn to meet his gaze, "I think I can do it on my own from here," she adds with a faint smile.

"Of course, you can," he states earnestly, smiling back, then returns to his previous spot and his own preparations.

Her knife moves smoothly over the vegetable chunks, rhythmical sound of the blade against wood quietly echoing in the compressed space of his kitchen, but her gaze wonders stubbornly. As much as she tries to keep her eyes down on the board, they slide off and away, seeking the opposite counter.

Having placed the duck breasts in the oven, Derek is currently making something with fennel _(she has no idea what but he must have told her what dinner will be)_, putting thinly sliced bulbs and leaves into a pan. Always graceful, always like the surgeon he'll be. No gesture is without a purpose, as he glides fluidly between the hob and the counter. The show continues, now in panoramic view, and it is more than pleasing to her.

She smiles to herself, no longer trying to avert her eyes. She adores watching him move, especially when he cooks. All slim stature and broad muscles, tempting her through the fabric of his clothes.

Her gaze slowly follows the lines of his back, all too familiar paths now concealed under the fine cut of his shirt. The eyes pause on his shapely behind, framed by the opening in his apron which only accentuates its shape. Sometimes she wonders if he is wearing it this way on purpose.

Addison licks her lips absentmindedly. These are pleasures she had tried to deny herself for many months before he came up to talk to her, nothing more than stolen glances kept well hidden, and she intends to savour it fully at present.

Derek reaches out for the top shelf, the cotton of his shirt stretching along the tensed muscles of his shoulders. Addison's gaze lingers as she starts to devise after-dinner plans in the back of her mind.

Maybe they won't even make it to dinner.

Sudden sharp pain interrupts her musings. She gasps and look down to see the knife no longer slicing through the vegetables but cutting her own flesh instead, the razor-like blade grazing her palm between the thumb and forefinger.

"What happened?" Derek materialises by her side in an instant as if by means of a magic trick.

"My hand slipped. I'm okay. It's nothing." She attempts to downplay the incident, but the droplets of blood on her skin steadily turning to a stream say otherwise.

"It's not nothing. You're hurt," there is urgency in his tone and he rushes to get a clean cloth.

Addison barely notices the blood, feeling utterly embarrassed. She lets Derek wrap her hand in a towel and lead her out of the kitchen and into the living room.

"I will be back in a minute," he states while having her sit on the couch.

She holds her hand without much regard, red dots appearing bit by bit in between the white fibres of the cloth. Her mind replays the last minutes in disbelief at her own folly. _Stupid. Stupid._ She hopes Derek did not notice her staring; he couldn't have_ (unless he has eyes on the back of his head)_, she reassures herself, his back was turned.

"Addison, are you feeling all right?"

Derek returns with a basin of water and a medical kit but stops mid-step and looks at her with fresh worry.

"Yeah, why?" she responds at once, not wanting to invite his further scrutiny.

"You've gone pale," he clarifies, placing down his supplies and sitting next to her immediately, his warm hand gently cupping her cheek.

"I'm fine," she reassures him, briefly closing her eyes, enjoying the touch. All his attentiveness makes her feel more foolish which probably makes her skin paler in turn. She breaths in deeply, exhaling slowly, trying to disperse the bothersome notions and bring her circulation back to normal.

Her efforts are successful; to her relief, Derek's attention now focuses on her injury. He removes the bloodied towel and delicately guides her hand to the bowl set on the side table. A low hiss escapes her lips when water meets the cut, but she keeps the hand still _(the sting feels grounding) _allowing the water and Derek's deft fingers to clean it. Soon the clear liquid turns murky cerise and he takes her hand out, patting it dry with a clean towel, then examining the cut with caution, fingers lifting and twisting her palm with utmost carefulness.

Inspection must have proven satisfactory as Derek's expression softens, the dark alertness in his eyes subdued; he reaches for the medical kit and retrieves a bottle of antiseptic.

"I'm sorry, this might sting," he warns her, bringing the pad to her skin and Addison presses her lips together, swallowing a whimper, no longer allowing herself to show any weakness.

As everything gradually returns to normal, she brings her control firmly back in place, wanting to put this event behind them as soon as possible. But the universe has other plans when the sleeve of her shirt falls down ever the tiniest bit, slightly exposing the permanent snowy-white lines on her forearm. At that moment, she knows Derek has seen them and had connected the dots. He now knows why they’ve only been having sex with the lights turned off.

There was a slight pause before he wraps a bandage around her hand, slowly, with deliberate tenderness and she feels calmer under his steady care, her previous two embarrassment now withdrawing.

"All done," he proclaims with a satisfied smile.

She thinks she ought to show him, come clean and tell him.

Maybe tonight.

Basin and bag in hand, he leaves the room and Addison, who feels at ease now, the irking thoughts gone along with the evidence of her clumsiness, safely covered in gauze.

When he comes back again, there is a glass of water in his hand and she gratefully accepts it, not having realised how dry her lips were.

"Thank you," she says, sipping eagerly on the cold drink.

Derek sits down again and inspects her hand, just her hand, one last time.

"Next time, maybe I should just leave the kitchen. I don't want you to injure yourself again because of me," he remarks casually, his words followed by a sassy grin adorning his lips.

Addison nearly chokes on her water, but she manages to swallow the gulp and remain composed. If there was any paleness left on her face, it's gone now, replaced by a rapid blush. She puts the glass aside and meets his eyes, twinkling with amusement. Her skin keeps burning, but she remains silent; there are no retorts, she quietly accepts the revealed embarrassment. Still smiling, Derek brings her palm to his lips and presses a kiss below the bandage line.

"We should finish dinner," he says after a moment, "Unless you prefer to rest. I can do it by myself."

She gives him a wary side glance, but there is no more smugness in his eyes; he does not press the subject. For now. She is certain he will enjoy reminding her about the incident.

"No, you need me Shepherd," she stands up, ready to leave.

As they walk towards the kitchen, Addison makes a firm mental note to avoid sharp tools when gazing at Derek's shapely behind.

She decides it will be a lot easier to stay away from the utensils.


	6. 2005 : the moment in question (2) — and do I dream again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Unhinged**

_ **(** **AddisonandDerekandMark)**_

* * *

**Chapter 6**

**2005 : the moment in question (2)**

_ **and do I dream again?** _

-:-

_"You liked this life until you decided you hated it."_

_— Charlie Barber, _ _Marriage Story_

* * *

When the housekeeper came over the next morning, she asked for the carpet to be cleaned and void of any traces of jasmine. Rosita obliged, had scrubbed on her hands and knees until her fingers bled, but the stench just would not come out.

She doesn't get angry often, she really doesn't. At least, not outwardly, not in a way that one would ever care to notice. She's nice; she's always nice, all smiles and baring teeth. _Polite_. But when she does feel her cheeks flush with unrepentant rage, one has to make do with it.

_"I don't smell anything, Ms. Addison."_

Her housekeeper meant well. She knew the woman has not got a bad bone in her.

Rosita had always been so kind and sweet to her and it had to be hard for her, too. She had hired her right after she had Jesse to help her around the house. So, she had to be hurting, too. She imagined Jesse’s death being difficult for her as well.

She _was_ a constant in her son's life.

_Was_.

_"Are you calling me a liar, Rosita? It's there! I’m not crazy! I can still smell that godforsaken jasmine!"_

Regardless, it was only after she had already sent Rosita home in disgrace that she became acutely aware that she was alone once again, and of the unkind words, she had said/screamed at her housekeeper.

There was wetness pooling down her cheeks and she watched the drop that had accumulated at the base of her chin break free and fall. Her eyes were feral wide and red-rimmed, she realised as she looked herself in the mirror. She blinked, confused again as to why he's determined to blame this on her, to blame _it_ on her carelessness, neglect, on her delusion and fear, on his promise — Derek's promise — that he could and would forgive her for this.

It was an accident.

The carpet was replaced, the hardwood too, but she could still smell jasmine long after it was gone. The perfume is a reminder that some things broken in haste can never be put back together again.

Derek came home the next day, a late afternoon, hangover and silent as he padded into the study and found her sitting in one of the leather armchairs. She was not doing anything; just sitting, waiting, perhaps.

She seemed to snap out of whatever haze she'd fallen into, stopped staring at nothing and turned to stare at him instead.

"Hi."

"You didn't come home last night."

"No."

His answer tripped her up and she found herself caught between relief and hysteria but she didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry." he said. Derek gave her a stricken look, face wet from the rain, she hadn’t realised it had been raining until then, and she noticed then his own tears. He tried to speak but for once all his brilliant bon mots seemed to have deserted him. Trembling with something inexpressible, he fell to his knees before her, burying his head in her lap.

"It's too quiet now." He told her enigmatically.

"I miss him, Addie. I miss him so much it’s breaking my heart."

She reached out cautiously and threaded a hand through his wet hair. The locks falling into his face made him look at once both boyish and bestial. She did her best to soothe, fear suddenly replaced by clinical curiosity. She could feel a strange dark power coursing through her at the sight of such a man kneeling before her in undisguised supplication. Those twin horses of curiosity and power had always been her undoing with Derek, the shadowy undertow of her own subconscious.

She remembered him leaning in and then, pressing a kiss to her head and inhaling deeply and she remembered him mewling, blinded by tears and he must not have been aware of his own movements because he reached out to her and she pulled him close.

She heard a hitch in his breath and a strangled gasp, like an animal in pain; he was crying. He was cracking open, spilling the tears he would not let himself cry earlier in the aftermath.

She gathered him close to her chest. He shuddered and shook, body wracked by wrenching sobs more suited to a child than a man. She tried not to let her indignation, _hate_ bubble up to the surface; she couldn't see. She tried not to feel the lividity of her own life, her love for this man.

_Hate._

But nevertheless, she tried.

* * *

**. . . 2003 . . .**

* * *

"Papa! Papa! Over there! Something for you, Papa!"

The small boy dashes towards the stall with his parents following closely behind him, making sure he is not lost amongst the crowds of the market. The colourful stands on both sides of the street display a similar selection of cheap goods, designed to lure the distracted gaze of wandering tourists trying to find their way to the stairs towards Fira, or their ever-curious son. This time his eyes have been drawn to a selection of novelty aprons lining up the front of the stand.

"This one here," he points to the item in the middle, white fabric with a tacky print on the background of a Greek flag and an imprint of a kiss to seal the garish design.

"Kiss the cook," he reads the words slowly, making sure he got the letters right, "And you are cook, Papa."

The stall owner appears by the side of the display, hoping to make a sale and smiles at Jesse, clearly impressed by the little boy's reading skills.

Addison's eyes follow her son's gaze, eyeing the cheap souvenir and she suppresses a smile, dipping the spoon in her gelato instead.

Derek looks from his son to his wife, hoping for her usual skilful reasoning with their child, but Addison just gives him the most charming of smiles and merely licks her spoon. He is on his own here. He turns back to their son, who is waiting patiently; he is used to his parents needing extra time to fully grasp his excellent ideas.

"Thank you, buddy, but I already have an apron at home," he speaks at last.

As expected, his argument does little to discourage Jesse, who shakes his head. "But not this one, Papa. If you wear this one, you will get more kisses," he states factually, the firmness in his words and eyes so much like his mother's that Derek cannot help but smile.

"Does it mean I shouldn't get kisses otherwise?" he teases and watches as his eyes flicker with sudden alert.

"Of course not," Jesse clarifies at once, "But this one you can get more."

Derek's smile turns into a chuckle and he glances at Addison and she looks utterly amused by the exchange, by how easy it was for him to cave.

"Well, that is certainly an excellent point," he concludes, making Addison raise an incredulous eyebrow, "I think I should buy it."

Jesse lets out a happy giggle then, turns to remove the apron from its spot; the task proves impossible as the hanger is too high for him to reach. The salesman approaches them, helping Jesse with the apron before handing it over to him.

"How much, sir?" Jesse asks.

"Twenty Euros," the salesman responds.

Jesse looks to his father at once and there is nothing left for him to do but pay as the salesman packs the apron and offers the bag to Jesse.

After the transaction is completed, Jesse gives the bag to Derek, it is his apron after all, and takes Addison's hand, as well as the last two mouthfuls of her gelato as they continue to make their way through the market.

"Perhaps we should find something for Mama, too," Derek suggests all too casually, making Jesse's enthusiasm light up anew and Addison's gaze turn scathing.

But unfortunately, the remaining stalls fail to impress Jesse's ‘_intricate’_ taste and no other purchases were made that day. The apron gets tucked away in one of their suitcases and forgotten for the rest of their travels in Greece.

Addison did not expect to see it again, but she could not be more wrong.

They have been back home for a week when she walked into the kitchen after a long day at the hospital and encounters an unruly sight.

Derek is getting ready to cook, neatly folding the sleeves of his shirt, the usual even strips of fabric rolled up his forearms, but instead of his normal apron, he sports the Greek souvenir. It makes for a strange fusion. Addison's gaze deliberately linger on his attire as she walks towards the sink. She turns on the tap and hears a faint sound of throat clearing, she ignores it, washing her cup without haste and then turning the tap off in that same unrushed manner. The sound repeats itself again, only louder this time and she turns slowly to find Derek looking at her expectantly.

"Yes?" she asks offhandedly, "Can I get you anything? A glass of water, perhaps, to help with your dry throat?"

A well-known spark ignites in his eyes, he is ready to meet her challenge, and his hand gestures to the sign on his chest.

"You cannot possibly be serious," Addison states coolly, "It is rather ostentatious, don't you think?"

"Jesse said I looked handsome," Derek responds with a pretend-hurt in his eyes, his hands straightening the neck strap of the apron.

"He should kiss you, then," Addison counters, standing her ground.

"He did," he responds with a smile, but the gleam in his stare tells her he is now craving a different kind of kiss. He looks almost bashful, continuing to look at her in silent anticipation, a proven way to make her resolve dissipate.

Addison's fingers tap on the counter as she makes him simmer in uncertainty, but the bloom of smile in the corner of her mouth tells him his charm has worked.

It always does.

She steps slowly, standing in front of him, hands resting on his chest as she tilts her head up to press a soft kiss on his lips.

"Perhaps another one?" he breathes out, his lips still lingering close to hers, "Just for good measure."

Addison laughs quietly, her fingers tracing the letters on the apron.

"You never stop surprising me."

"There are many things I will never stop doing," he declares, gently brushing her lips with his in silent encouragement.

Her lips still smiling, she leans in and kisses him again, deeper this time, her body melting against his as his arms wrap around her. She sighs softly, savouring the pleasure of their shared caress.

Their son was right; this cook needs to be kissed more.

* * *

Addison's lips are red and enticing from the wine she was sipping before, and if he doesn't kiss them soon, he may bite them completely off.

"I should have asked you out first," he murmurs into her mouth.

On the contrary to popular beliefs, he was the one who saw her first, not Derek. _No_. It was fall and he remembered the harsh nasal tone of the head librarian informing them that it was fifteen minutes to closing. He remembers he had a well-thumbed copy of Gross Anatomy in the nearly empty reading room, save for the redhead tucked away at the table in the corner opposite him.

He had never had a problem in talking to girls — never, but this one and only time, his mouth went dry, he could feel his heart in his throat and his stomach ached, and got up and ran ten blocks home.

The next time he saw her, he followed her, her lean silhouette. Her red hair flowed freely in the breeze. She appeared dancing through the street, her hips swaying to a rhythm all her own. Her shielded eyes couldn’t hide a thing. She was a lost soul, roaming, waiting for someone to find her. To tame her. To give her what she wanted. She needed a man who too was a lost soul, wild and free, even if he wouldn’t admit he was lost.

She needed someone to rock her world. To shake things up, to surprise her. To make her laugh and to make her cry. To serenade her with the words she longed to hear. She needed a man who knew her deepest secret, fears.

He followed her into a coffee shop and there she met up with a blonde and a guy, whom he assumed was the blonde’s boyfriend.

_(Now, he knows them as Savvy and Weiss.)_

She caught his eye once but she didn’t _see_ him. He was enrapt, caught in her trance of mystery. He wanted to go over to her and lean forward to claim her lips in his own. He would welcome her into his lonesome world and they would be lonesome together.

The next semester was when they had classes with her and he never stopped seeing her after that. He never stopped thinking about her since the moment he saw her in the library. Derek introduced her as _‘the girl he had told her about’_ and she shook his hand and told him her name, and he repeated it a couple of times, letting it adjust and settle.

_Addison. Addison. Addison._

He contemplated telling her, numerous times over the years, that he's so _fantastically-over-the-top-want-to-slit-his-own-throat_ in love with her that for every minute of every hour of every day he can't believe his own bad luck that Derek had had the courage to ask her out first.

He never could.

_What would differ if he had struck up a conversation with her at that library?_

"You wouldn't." Her challenge draws his lips to hers like a magnet, and it's in no way proper, in no way graceful, all nips and heavy breath and tongues sliding against each other.

They're interrupted by his phone buzzing in his jacket pocket. She scrapes her teeth against his jugular while he manages to communicate with only short hums. When he's finished, he threads his fingers through her hair like a grappling hook and pulls her face away from his neck.

"Derek said he'll be late."

* * *

**. . . 1998 . . .**

* * *

The nightlight they have in Jesse's room casts moons and stars along the walls, his mobile dangling above his cot with smiling planets and constellations. She sits with him in the rocking chair, watching the way his tired eyes absorb the colours dancing around the room, smacking his lips every now and then and squirming in her arms.

She trails a finger lightly over his button nose, wondering whether he'll look more like her or Derek as he grows. When he was first born, aside from his blue eyes, everything about him was exactly like her. Everyone said so and she revelled in it. But now, seven months later, she notes how he is growing increasingly like his father, in both looks and personality. It's a beautiful thing to watch.

And she's curious, of course, she is, about whether that will change. Just as she's curious about what his voice will sound like, what his favourite subjects in school will be, what kind of friends he'll make — what type of brother will he be to his future siblings. But she wouldn't mind so much if he stayed like this forever. A small, squirmy thing in her arms, so cuddly and warm and loving and innocent. It makes her heart lighter at just the sight of him.

His eyes flutter close, finally, after an hour of rocking in the chair with him. She grins, watching the way his eyes roll beneath his closed lids. Even in his sleep, he’s never still.

"Sweet dreams, baby." she murmurs quietly, lifting carefully from the chair and placing him in his cot.

She stands over him for just one moment, content to watch him and be so utterly grateful as she is every day that she has her sweet baby boy. There's no way she can wipe the dopey grin from her face, nor does she want to.

As she leaves his room, leaving his door open just slightly behind her, she almost startles aloud when she bumps into Derek. He catches her as she jumps in surprise, hands spanning her ribs as he swallows her surprise in a kiss.

"Derek." she whispers against his lips. "How long have you been standing there?"

He grins at her. "You really want the answer to that?"

She swats him lightly on the chest for that, laughing. "Stalker."

"You're smitten. _JJ_ has gotten you wrapped around his little finger."

She scowls at him. "If you call him_ JJ_ one more time, Derek, I swear to God —"

He presses a hand against her lips, silencing her. "No death threats around the baby, Addie," he chides her, amusement lurking in the corner of his eyes.

When it seems that he doesn't wish to remove his hand from her mouth, she nips lightly at one of his fingers, watching the way his eyes darken as he frees her lips.

"If you stop calling him that, perhaps I won't need to keep threatening you."

"You know, I'm beginning to feel like a victim in our relationship —"

"A victim? Hah! You really want to piss me off, Derek, and be a victim, go ahead."

He grins, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. "You're adorable when you're pretending to be pissed at me."

"I'm not pretending!" she protests as they move into their room, shutting the door behind them.

"Sure you are. You're quick to make angry remarks but you're all soft and adorable after spending time with our son. You always are."

She rolls her eyes. "Now you're just being ridiculous. There's nothing soft and adorable about me."

He steps closer, bracketing her against the door, his hand near her head. She is caught between the door and Derek's chest with nowhere else to go. "I beg to differ."

"Don't you dare try and seduce me into believing those lies, Derek."

"Oh, but Addie ..." he murmurs, kissing her pulse point and making her fist his shirt tightly. "They're not lies."

Then, he nuzzles the soft skin behind her ear, licking lightly along her earlobe, distracting her. Addison allows it for a moment, closing her eyes with a soft sigh and revelling in the sensation.

"Mm, don't," she says at last, pulling away.

"No?" he nips lightly at her neck, undeterred.

"I mean it, Derek," she says, shoving him lightly even as her pulse begins to pound faster from his proximity. "Not tonight. I can't, not with your mother right down the hall. Sorry."

Derek, it seems, isn't in the mood to take_ 'no' _for an answer. He worries at her neck in a way she is concerned will bruise — a hickey is the last thing she wants to explain — and Derek's hand is wandering lower, lower to cup her in between and she moans, interested, despite everything.

“Derek, quit it. I said no.”

“Oh, I heard you,” Derek says. He shifts so he’s lying on top of her, so that she can feel the press of him through the thin cotton of his pyjama pants.

* * *

"What else did you see?"

_Pain. Innocence and guilt. Self-punishment. Vulnerability. A need for more. For better; for justice and dignity. A broken soul._

**x**

"I find it exhausting to be you."

"Thank you."

"Is your mind always full?"

"Most of the time."

* * *

**. . . 2000 . . .**

* * *

It is an image of blissful tranquillity, one Derek has never known could exist, not in his life anyway.

Two figures lying on the sofa, enveloped in peaceful sleep, a woman and a child; a view that has never lingered in his perception, except in passing glances, and now it is the only impression he wants to preserve.

The little boy's face is hidden, buried deeply in Addison's shoulder with his tiny hands grasping her dress while Addison holds him firmly in her arms. Her head is tilted as if ready to fall off the top of the sofa, her hair half-covering her face in lustrous waves, shining like the last beacon of light in the growing dusk.

Standing in the doorway, Derek watches the picture from afar with fervent affection, each line and hue a broad stroke on the canvas of his mind. He used to consider the allure of life as the most fragile thing, easily broken and slowly vanishing in the continuous flow of time, the shards of too many broken memories poking sharply from the corners of his mind, reminding him of the purposelessness of any attachment.

Before anyone ever noticed his talents for drawing and long before his art teacher forced him into competitions, he would be content with just a pencil and paper to himself, drawing monsters and dragons and dinosaurs, good guys and bad guys, blood and gore. He even made short comics for his friends in middle school and they would pass it around in secret like it was the Playboy magazines Willie Goodman stole from his father.

Now, he hesitates for a moment, not wanting to disturb their rest, but then his heart pushes him forward, the distance between him and the scene suddenly unbearable, simple observation never enough to satisfy its beat. His cat-like steps are silent against the hardwood floor as he walks into the room and approaches the sofa. His fingers twitch and he cannot resist reaching his hand out and brushing the hair away from Addison's face, uncovering the sublime lines of her face, their contour soften by the quietude of sleep. His fingertips linger on the soft skin of her cheek, caressing it gently. She does not stir, his touch a familiar constant in her life. His hand then moves to touch their son's head, stroking his silky red locks just as tenderly. He smiles admiring at their tint, resembling his mother's more and more each day.

His mind recalls Botticelli's Madonna and Child and how he remade the composition with Addison's and Jesse's faces _(Mark had thought it looked fucking creepy, as he so eloquently said it)_, only to discover the piece could not embody their beauty in all its intricacy and exquisiteness, constantly evolving, unlike the static figures on the painting, no matter how well-rendered.

As tranquil as they appear, he cannot let them sleep here all night. His hands shift, taking a gentle hold of their son, wanting to slowly remove him from the embrace. Addison's eyes spring open instantly, alerted by the attempt, fierce protectiveness colouring her gaze like sharp crystals, ready to cut, making Derek's heart swell in his chest, fresh adoration flowing through his veins, crimson red and warmer than blood. The gas flames in Addison's eyes cease to burn when she sees him, eyelids once again heavy and beginning to close.

"It's okay, Addie. I'll take him to bed," Derek whispers softly, smiling as her arms give way at once, allowing him to take their son.

A small mewl of discontent leaves the boy's lips as he's pulled away from his mother's cosy embrace. He hugs Jesse with the utmost delicacy, not wanting to wake him, too, and as soon as he brings him to his chest, he sighs and nestles closer, finding another familiar hold.

"I see he finally tired himself out," he says, adjusting his arms, ensuring he rests comfortably.

"Or rather he managed to tire me," Addison replies, her voice still dulled by sleep. She moves slowly, straightening her head, hand reaching for her neck, the muscles stiffened from the clumsy resting position.

Since he mastered walking, Jesse had swiftly transformed his newfound _skill_ into a love for running. Finally being able to explore on his own, the patter of tiny feet and loud laughter echoes constantly down the long corridors and stairways, increasing curiosity fuelling his endless pursuit. And of course with Addison or Derek following closely behind, ensuring that he does not fall.

Derek's hands now twitch anew, longing for nothing more than to relief Addison's discomfort, but first things first.

"I'll be back soon," he promises solemnly. Addison barely nods, her head dipping once more in the search of interrupted sleep.

Smiling at that sight of her, Derek leaves the room with their son tucked safely in his hold. He walks up the stairs slowly and he remains fast asleep, curled up against his shoulder. He marvels at the perfection of him, growing and ever-changing, and that somehow, he played a role in creating him, even if the part were trivial comparing to Addison's. He remembers how tiny he was when he was born yet already radiating with strength as he held him for the first time, and he knew it was all because of Addison.

Upon reaching his room, he places Jesse down on his bed, a task proving harder than it seems with his unwillingness to leave his arms and his equal reluctance to let him go. He fusses softly, but once his head sinks into the pillow, he returns to his tranquil slumber. Derek covers him with a blanket and tucks him in with care, then makes sure that all his chosen cuddly toys are close by, especially his favourite one, a plush penguin they got at the Central Park Zoo.

Taking the soft toy in his hands, Derek smiles remembering the pure wonder in his eyes when he discovered the real animals. The excitement in his gaze was accompanied by Addison's stern one, directed at him, ensuring that he would not get any spontaneous ideas.

He puts the plush down on the bed, bringing it closer, within the immediate reach of tiny arms and plants a final, loving kiss on his forehead before exiting quietly.

**xxx**

When he returns downstairs, he finds Addison fast asleep with her head once again tilted against the sofa. He goes to her without delay, sitting on the edge of the cushion and reaching his arm out to guide her body closer to him. His hand on her back, her head instantly moves and rolls to rest on his shoulder. Fingers find their purpose at once, gently stroking and pressing the knotted muscles on the back of her neck. Addison hums with relief, her body pressing to his in obvious appreciation of his touch.

"Is he asleep?" she murmurs into his neck, attempting to lift her head, but its heaviness and his inviting warmth pull her back down instantly.

"He is," Derek sits back so she can rest more comfortably, his fingers still massaging the back of her neck, "You should go back to sleep as well."

"I was not asleep. I am merely resting my eyes," she insists but snuggles closer, nose burrowing in his shoulder.

"Of course," Derek does not argue, finding her barely conscious state utterly endearing, as is her intuitive need for closeness, "But perhaps it would be more comfortable to _rest_ _your_ _eyes_ in bed," he suggests gently.

Another soft sigh falls from her lips that caress his neck with pleasurable warmth, but she does not reply.

It is an image of blissful tranquillity, one Derek has never known could exist, not in his life anyway.

"Addie?" he asks after a moment, his voice barely a whisper, in case she has fallen asleep altogether.

"Yes," she purrs, "It’s better now," she exhales contentedly as her hand rests on his chest, fingers finding gaps between buttons, eager to venture beneath his shirt in search of heat. She has somehow jumped ahead in her dream, thinking they were already in bed. And no wonder, since the comfort of his torso is what she associates with their restful nights together.

His smile widening, Derek does not correct her, simply enveloping her further, waiting for her to drift away completely. And soon enough, her breaths even, her body languid and relaxed in his hold, a clear sign of deep sleep.

Derek's arms encircle Addison's legs and back and he lifts her up with tender ease. He leaves the darkened room and once again makes it way up the stairs, carrying another precious charge, trusting into his care with similar willingness. His grip tenses slightly as he considers the gravity of her trust; it is not something she had given to _anyone_ before. He relaxes his grasp anew, holding her surely; he had forsaken her confidence once, but never again.

The bedroom is sheathed in darkness, the last sparks of light fading quickly, but he enters it with confidence, the path to their bed paved with countless steps. He puts Addison down on the mattress, and lies down next to her at once, gathering her closer and allowing her to reclaim her sleeping spot on his chest, the transition effortless enough for her to remain asleep. He smooths her hair, fingers tracing its length, then moves to stroke her neck in soft caresses, making her sigh in her sleep, her body flush against his.

The purple sky outside slowly fades to black, sealing the image of them in all its serenity. In the stillness of their space, Derek feels her heartbeat pulsating against his chest and overpowering his senses. He can almost hear their son's matching beat, imagining it resonating through the walls, filling their brownstone with life. He used to think he could only truly live if he were ready for death at any given moment, but now he knows he could not have been more wrong. Addison's and Jesse's pulses thump inside him like a second heart. And he will do anything to protect them and keep them thriving.

He has never felt more alive.

* * *

She got an unpleasant whiff of _jasmine_ one evening, when her husband, half-drunk, corners her roughly in the hallway of their home as she was getting ready for bed. He whispered all the things he had planned all day to do to her.

The mystery perfume mixed with the sour whiskey on his breath made her want to vomit. She stayed still and quiet, though inside _anger_ flows like magma through her veins.

She never asked him who it was that he was _fucking_.

She, of course, wears no scent, save for the mild-scented lavender Rosita uses to wash their clothes.

A woman like her should go unseen, unheard, _unsmelled_, colourless and odourless as befits a shadow.

The bright leaves of the coleus bush are odourless, too.

* * *

**. . . 1996 . . .**

* * *

"Are you finished with your coffee?"

The words are followed by an attentive hand appearing over the side of the canapé tucked away in the corner of the terrace.

"Yes, thank you," she extends her own, offering the cup, without taking the gaze off her reading.

The morning breeze lifts the pages of her book before settling it back in its place, then advances to caress the locks of her hair. Addison inhales deeply, enjoying the fresh scent of Italy's foliage travelling alongside it. The sun is peaking shyly above the tops of the trees, preparing to cast spells of heat over the garden, but, for now, the air remains pleasantly cool.

The hand takes her empty cup, but returns always immediately, gently enveloping her hands in his. His fingers slowly interlace with hers, warm and safe, thumb stroking the inside of her palm. Soon, Derek brings her hand to his lips and kisses it ardently while sitting next to her.

She hums in appreciation, savouring the tingles of warmth sprouting underneath her skin. She is ready to retrieve her hand, but he continues to hold on, to keep it close to his chest as more kisses follows.

"Yes?" she finally looks up from her page and meets his adoring stare that's fixed on her.

"It's nothing," he says while his nose strokes her fingers. It's their honeymoon and they haven't gone out, or done anything else in Italy but stayed in bed. She smiles, his boyish endearment never failing to delight her. As does his constant devotion.

"Can I do something for you?" she questions him still, enjoying the tease.

"Have I ever needed a reason to kiss you?" he retorts and seals his words with another press of his lips against her skin.

"No," her smiles widens, and her hand moves from his, fingers brushing against his lips and cheek, slowly tracing its lines.

The feel of his lips on her skin has become a permanent addition to her daily routine and she cannot imagine it any other way.

"I have spent my whole life looking for you," he cradles her hand against his cheek, "And I can't believe I found you."

She gives him a fond look, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as her arms wrap around his neck, hands coming to rest near the short hair on his nape. "Derek, that's a little cheesy, don't you think?"

"No, it's accurate," he says, so true and genuine, "When I asked my father how'd he know mom was the right woman for him, he told me when the time came, I'd have no doubt. And I didn't."

She continues starring at him, dumbstruck. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't this. He'd never told her about this and they've never really talked about his father, other than how he had died. She knows nothing of before.

"I wanted you from the moment I saw you, Addie." he says, lowering his gaze to look at her mouth.

"I believe we have already discussed what you wanted, extensively," she comments with a playful spark in her eyes, setting her book aside, "But perhaps it bears repeating," she allows herself the privilege of caressing the delicate skin of Derek's neck, feeling the elevated pulse beat against her fingers like the thrum of a hummingbird's wings.

"I wanted you from the moment I saw you. More than I ever wanted anything in my life." he moves closer to her, arm slipping around her silk clad waist, "You aren't the first girl I kissed, but I swear you'll be the last."

A breathy laugh that isn't quite a laugh tears away from her throat. "Oh, really?" she raises a sceptical eyebrow, fingers now brushing the collar of his shirt in wordless contemplation.

"Yes," he inclines his head to plant a kiss on her collar bone.

There is a slight pause.

As she looks up to meet his gaze, Derek's eyes are dark and still, like the murky, undisturbed water of a lake. His fingers then tilts her chin and he leans forward to kiss her in a brief brush of his lips to start, fleeting tease of a kiss.

He's soon dipping down to the pretty pink of her lips, parting like a flesh wound before him. Fervent and deep. He slides his tongue across her bottom lip, as if asking for permission, and once she opens her mouth in a wordless invitation, he positively _devours_ her; his mouth crashing against hers like waves into a shore, swallowing the muted moans escaping her lips.

Warmth pools in her gut as she sinks forward in his arms, expanding outwards and radiating with pleasure that she's aching for him and the garden around them fades away; she knows of nothing else but the feel of their lips together and their bodies pressing towards each other. She remembers their first kiss and how she shied away from this intense sensation of being swept away and off her feet by a wave of emotions.

When Derek finally pulls away, she inhales sharply, suddenly remembering what it is like to breathe. She can feel her skin glowing with heat, no doubt visible through the blush on her cheeks and chest; her lips are still parted as she strives to quiet her thumping heart. The air around them turns sultry as the sun now emerges from its leafy cover, adding its warmth to theirs.

"This," he says, drinking the image of her anew.

"What? The kiss?" she manages to utter, still somehow breathless.

"No," Derek's thumb caresses the pink of her flushed skin, relishing the mark of their passion.

"I see _you_."

* * *

When they undress each other, when they kiss and lick and swallow each other's gasps, and running fingers across skin, it's not just sex, it's not just _fucking,_ too. They slide against one another, smooth against rigid edges, and he rolls her over but it's not to press her down; it's to lick up and down her spine, to open her up in the most intimate of ways. She quivers and audibly sighs as he licks at her, wetting and loosening her muscles with his tongue.

It's not sex, it's not fucking; it's intimating and they're finally getting to know each other_ (even though he thinks he knows her a lot better than her husband does.)_

He's smelled and tasted her in so many different ways and places now but this — _this_ placement is different, more private, sensual. Special, like it's only allowed for that special someone. He wants her but he wonders how it would feel to take her into his own body, to lie underneath the weight of her supple warm. He could lie back and take what is given to him.

Though it's not how it all seems to be happening - not the whole reality of it, because he knows there is no more time for them to be finding the best ways for their bodies and minds to slot together with each of their imperfections to line then up to a perfect whole.

Because it's now or never.

* * *

**. . . 1999 . . .**

* * *

Addison watches from where she is laying on the beach as Derek carries their son over to the sea. Jesse squirms in his arms, watching the sea with rapt attention — startling for a child of only seven months.

She smiles widely, heart tumbling in her chest, as he stoops low with Jesse, placing him on the sea. Allows the boy to wrap his hands around his fingers and walks him towards the calm tide. Jesse places one foot in front of the other slowly but with so much determination in his face that she understands why Derek always tells her that Jesse looks just like her.

When his small toes first hit the ocean, Jesse's big blue eyes go wide, mouth falling open. Then, as the next tide rolls in, Derek grips his wrists tightly, swinging his feet through the cold sea, her little boy lets out a magnificent screech, turning into a chuckle as the corners of his mouth lift up and his eyes sparkle delightedly.

No longer willing to be a bystander anymore, she pushes up from the towel and heads over to them, running her hand along Derek's spine as she passes him.

"Hey." she grins at him, watching as he grins back.

She goes down to be levelled with Jesse, curls her fingers around his ribs and nuzzles her nose against his in an eskimo kiss. He laughs, eyes twinkling just like his dad's when he sees her, little fingers wriggling from Derek's and falling into her.

Addison catches him easily, laughing as she does. His little fists beat against her collarbones and she stands up, spinning him around just the way he loves, before crouching back down with him. His toes dip into the sea again and he makes a loud, high-pitched noise, chubby cheeks pulled wide as he grins, legs kicking madly against the water.

Hearing Derek's chuckle, she glances back at him over her shoulder, catching him staring at her ass.

"Derek." she chides him, narrowing her eyes. "Stop staring at my ass."

He smirks, placing a hand on the small of her back as she stands, holding Jesse in her arms. Her little boy squirms in her arms so she bounces him, rolling her eyes. He's as energetic as his father, perhaps even more so, if that's possible at all.

"It'll be a cold day in Hell when I stop admiring certain, ah, aspects of my wife's body." he says, hand falling to her waist, thumb tracing patterns across the skin left bare by her bikini.

She lets out a startled laugh, pressing a kiss to his lips lightly, pushing up on her toes suddenly and feeling Jesse head-butt her arm in surprise.

"It's never enough for you, huh?" she murmurs, watching the way his eyes darken as the words escape her lips.

"God, Addie, you know that's …" he trails off, pressing his forehead against hers.

She lightly strokes his bicep before pulling away, looking down at her son in her arms. He has his forehead pressed against her collarbone, his legs no longer kicking as they bracket her right hip but rather dangle lightly, his eyes beginning to flutter close, his fingers in his mouth. She grins, pressing a delicate kiss to his forehead, before looking up at Derek.

"I'll go put him to bed." she tells him.

He nods, turning to walk back to their Hamptons beach house together. "You should go and get Mark before it gets dark. I’ll get a start on dinner."

"You say that, but we both know you're going wait for me to help you."

She pauses, face morphing to one of surprise. "Shut up."

He smirks. "Because nobody realised how they pale in comparison to mine until they tasted my —"

"Hey now, that was totally unfair, anyone's cooking would pale in comparison to that. Besides, you openly admitted that it wasn't down to your culinary skills, but because it was a recipe handed down through many generations of Shepherds." she says defensively, careful not to jostle Jesse as she does so, cupping the back of his head as he stares up at her with sleepy blue eyes.

She's not going to lie, he is an amazing cook.

"Daddy's going to teach you his delicious recipe, don't you worry. Then you can kick Mommy's ass at cooking, too." he tells him, kissing the top of his head delicately.

* * *

**. . . 1993 . . .**

* * *

Then, it happened again when they were interns.

She was asked to see the Chief of Surgery at his office that afternoon but when she arrived at the door, there was already another doctor in a white coat inside. So, she opt to sit outside the office, awaiting her turn while she examined the tips of her nails — Mr. Carlton's pain from his imaginary disease can wait another half hour. Unfortunately, it was during moments like these that her mind wandered to Mark Sloan and his obsession with tormenting her, like he wouldn't give up until he clawed right into her mind and became another one of those girls, swooning at his name.

_Ridiculous_.

It was then that the door to the Chief's burst open, a guy barreling through it.

She startles, realising that it was Mark himself. His brows are slanted, his expression furious and she watches as the door slams shut behind him, and he curses under his breath.

"Wow," she says lightly, "You really are following me."

His eyes snaps down to her then, seemingly only realising at that moment that she's sitting in front of him.

"You wish," he scoffs before heading down the hall.

She frowns, infuriated by his dismissal and then she was getting up from her seat, chasing after him, forgetting all about her appointment with the Chief. There was something about the way he pushed that made her pull, and vice versa. She spies down the main halls, and sees him ducking into a side passageway, in between the main buildings.

She took a breath before walking up behind him.

"Mark, what are you —"

"Now who's following who?" he sneers.

She purses her lips. "I only wanted to see if you were alright. But if you're going to be an ass about it —" she stops, realising how close they are now, in the damp corner next to the chapel. She tenses when he steps towards her, his hands trapping her against the wall on either side of her head.

"Shhhh ..."

She closes her eyes, unable to look at the unrepentant anger on his face, and they share a breath, his mouth dropping down to cover hers without even a thought. He only waits a moment before reaching out to tangle his fingers in her hair, cradling her head before slamming her back against the wall. She lets out a small whimper when he caught her lip with his teeth, sinking, and she bows into him until every inch of her is touching him.

He forces his anger onto her lips, a choked groan surfacing from the back of his throat as he tries to pull her face closer — like there's even an inch left between them.

"_You_ have to stop doing that," she pants when she jerks her head away. "_I'm_ married."

"_You_ have to stop kissing me back. _You_ have a husband."

"You’re such an asshole_,_" she says, then sweeps her tongue out over her lips to taste pennies. “You know that?”

He watches her, satiated.

"You’re not the first person to say that."

For a moment longer than comfortable, she stares at him - into him. Frowning, her fingers mess around in her hair, tying it up with an elastic hairband. "Look at us. We can't be alone together, can we?"

"I —" he blinks, looking almost lost for a moment. "Apparently not."

"We're supposed to be friends."

He backs away from her then, shoving off of the wall. "But we aren't friends, are we, Addison? Not really. We avoid each other. We smile politely. We're two people who pretend to be friends because it would be inconvenient not to."

She remains where she is as he swipes a hand over his face, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Well, maybe we should stop pretending."

"Maybe we should."

He looks at her one more time before heading down the hall without another word.

She sinks back against the wall, tilting her head back, recalling Derek's words for a moment and she watches Mark disappear around the corner.

_Mark Sloan, he's a ticking time bomb._

And she was going to set him off.


	7. 2002 : a look into the past — godson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Unhinged**

_ **(** **AddisonandDerekandMark)**_

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**2002 : a look into the past**

** _godson_ **

* * *

The door closes behind him loudly.

It's quiet, save for the television playing in the living room. A cartoon, of course — Sesame Street, he suspects.

He hears Elmo's obnoxious laugh and he smiles to himself; it has been a while since he's been here.

He walks into their brownstone like he belongs there all along. Like he's home. Like he's living the life he wants to live.

_A wife. A kid. A dog. A house. And 'Honey, I'm home'._

But Mark Sloan does not belong anywhere or to anyone. He'd like to belong somewhere sometimes, though. Or to someone, even _forever_.

"Derek?”

He hears Addison's voice travelling through the walls from upstairs and not long later he hears the little pitter-pattering of feet across the floorboards.

"Is not Papa! Is Uncle Mark!" Jesse exclaims, stoping at the archway before running full force towards him. He locks his little arms tight around his leg and Mark almost topple over with the sheer force.

"Hi, little man," Mark leans down gently and lifts him eye-level with his face. His innocent blue eyes meets his unfocused gaze. "Wow. You've gotten so big." he says in wonder, "You've been eating all of your vegetables, haven't you?"

Jesse just gives him a toothy grin and nods. "I have." His little arms wraps around his neck, his soft red curls tucks into his collar. Jesse hugs his neck so tightly that guilty tears fills his eyes.

"Uncle Mark, where did you go?"

_Where did he go?_

Well, technically, nowhere. He's been in New York the entire time. He was just following this technique/advice from his psychiatrist, to cut out people/things that are causing him pain _(regardless of intention or mode)_, causing him to self-destruct and loath.

"I'm so sorry, Jesse," he says softly, cupping his cheeks, "I had a patient in Chicago that needed my help." he lies.

"But you didn't come say goodbye," he says, burying his face in the crook of his neck again, "You always say goodbye first."

"I know. I was in a hurry. I promise I won't disappear ever again."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Jesse then grabs his hand, pulls out his pinky finger and wraps his tiny one with his. "You have to pinky swear," he tells him.

"Okay. I pinky swear," he laughs, holding their pinkies tight before bringing both of their thumbs together and locking _it_.

The promise that he is sure to break, and maybe even, really soon.

Just then the floorboard on the stairs creek and they both look up in unison to see Addison watching them. "Mama! Mama! Look! Uncle Mark is back!"

Jesse begins to squirm in his arms so he sets him back down.

"_Addison_."

"Well, it's good to see that you're still alive, Mark," she presses her lips together, a hand on her hip as she goes into the kitchen.

He follows after her.

"Mama, can I have ice cream?" Jesse asks then, jumping up and down as dashes towards them, all the while Addison rejects his request, “Please. Please. Please.”

Little hands tugs and pulls at her sleeves with surprising strength, prompting or rather demanding her to let him have what he wants.

“Jesse!” her voice is stern and she shrugs his hand away when he pulls too harshly and her top slips down her shoulder. She recovers quickly, though. "Stop that! This is silk.”

“Mama, please. I’m hungry.”

“Then, have an apple. Papa’s coming home soon. We’ll eat dinner then."

"_Pleaseeeee_." he whines and Mark almost tells her to give the kid what he wants. _Almost_. "Please, Mama. Please."

"I said no, Jesse. Now go watch TV. I want to speak with your Uncle Mark.”

“No.”

“You want to do math instead? I have a whole book of questions waiting for you.”

He could see his mother’s brilliance shine through Jesse’s eyes, as is his apparent anger. Mark watches fondly as Jesse sulks, with his arms crossed around his chest, all the way back to his spot on the couch. He kicks at something and Addison shouts at him to pick it up before she tells his father of his bad behaviour.

_Derek._

He knows she's surprised to see him because he saw the glint in her eyes when she had first looked at him at the top of the stairs. "Where on earth have you been?" she asks once she's sure they're out of earshot from Jesse.

"Work." he replies with a shrug.

"No, you weren't. Your secretary said you took a leave and they didn't know when you'd be coming back. Why did you tell _us_?"

He shrugs again.

"What? What is it?”

“Nothing. I —”

_I needed to clear my head._

“What? Were you in Paternity Court again? Did another girl pin you to be the father of her baby?" she raises an eyebrow. "Did you have to keep it a secret and not tell anyone for the show like before?"

_No_. It's not Paternity Court. And he's learned from that mistake; always show up to a paternity hearing because if he does not, he will be named the father by default.

He shrugs. He has no answer for her. He can't tell the truth because he’s not so sure he wants to know what the truth is either.

“I,” he licks his lips, scratches the back of his head, shrugging, “I don’t know what it is you want me to say, Red. I don’t have to tell you anything. It’s not like we’re married. You’re my wife.” he jokes, tries to emit a chuckle but it dies in the back of his throat.

Rolling her eyes, “Fine. If you can’t be serious, don’t tell me,” she says, taking a couple of steps forward, then, turning back around to face him again, “Then, _why_ are you here, Mark?” she states with all seriousness.

His fear disappears instantly, replaced at once by a crushing wave of exasperation, irritation and annoyance. Not bothering to lie this time, Mark straight up tells her, “I came to see Jesse.”

She looks at him like she doesn’t believe him.

"I'm stealing _your_ kid,” he says quickly before calling out for the boy. Jesse comes running towards him. “We'll be back later."

"But — Mark —"

Mark’s patience with Addison finally runs out and he goes to open the door. Sometimes she can be really mean.

"Yay! Bye, Mama!" Jesse practically screams as they walk down the steps. “Where are we going, Uncle Mark?” he asks. “Can I have ice cream?”

"Listen to your Uncle, Jesse! Mark, I want him back before dinner! No junk food! Do you hear me? Mark?" she shouts after them. “And don’t fall for those puppy eyes!”

He give her a thumbs up without looking back.

He’s sure he’s capable of looking after a five year old. _His godson._ And he’s a surgeon, after all, he reasons as though they’re mutually exclusive. He can do this. He’d spent time with Jesse before, though usually it involved either Addison or Derek or both together with him, where he’s the mere observer, the Uncle. But this time he’s all alone _alone_ with his nephew.

Mark drags Jesse down the street, away from where all the rows of brownstones are parked in a handy little alcove and further towards the main bustle of New York City.

When they hit the heart of the city, he looks around, getting a mental map made before Jesse tries tugging him towards the left. "Woah, wait a sec," he mutters, stopping the boy from going anywhere. "We have to lay out some rules, okay? I don't want your mom angry at me."

Jesse wrinkles his nose. "More rules, Uncle Mark?"

"No. Forget your mom's rules, those are way too many anyway — And don’t tell your mom I said this, but some of her rules are pretty silly," he says, wondering why Addison’s fifteenth rule, _‘don't walk into the dining room unless you are using the room for a special occasion’_, exists in the first place.

It consists of the carpet always having to have that _'just vacuumed’ _look, so it would be a dead giveaway if anyone walked across it. He’s no exception to her crazy rules. He’s been reprimanded plenty a time of breaking them.

Maybe it is something she grew up doing; it sounds silly enough to be inherited from the Montgomery Manes, also known as, concocted by Bizzy — Mark has no idea.

Clearing his mind, he lifts his free hand up, trying to emulate Carolyn Shepherd the best he can. "Rule number one, listen to me. If I tell you to do something, I need you to do it. Stuff like holding my hand when I tell you to and waiting when I tell you to wait, okay?"

"Okay," Jesse says agreeably, nodding along.

"Second," Mark continues, "If you want or need something, you have you tell me. You feel sick, you feel tired, you feel hungry, anything — I can't read your mind — really, I can't." Jesse grins and Mark grins back, both of them stifling a laugh, "Making sense so far?"

"Do as you say and talk to you," he recites.

"Cool." Mark feels the nerves set in, now he hasn't got Addison being a helicopter parent, his insides jelly. "Three — we're at three, right?"

Jesse nods angelically.

"Great," he repeats. "Three is not to go out of sight and when we're in a crowded place, stay right beside me, hold my hand, so I don't lose you. I really, really don't want to lose you.”

_Not again._

Someone bumps into his shoulder and Mark decides that it's time for a snack, leading Jesse to the nearest traffic light to cross the road, still telling him the rules.

"Four is behaving. You behave and you get treats. You don't behave, you don't get anything — just, I'll tell mom and dad that you were misbehaving."

"What kind of treats?" Jesse asks curiously, tilting his head back to get his long fringe out of his eyes. Mark wonders if it would be too big a thing to get his pseudo-nephew a haircut without Addison and Derek's permission.

"Uh, a toy," Mark decides, remembering when he was Jesse's age and how his mother would get him things as well. His Nan, too, until she passed away, though she was more about pocket money and verbal praises than physical objects. "Or money to spend," he adds.

"What's number five?" Jesse asks as the traffic lights go green, the rapid beating loud. Mark only notices he's cringing when they're halfway across.

"Five is —" and Mark's mind goes blank, the only rule that comes to mind being about bedtime. "I can't remember it. I think that's fine, though. Four rules — tell me what they are?"

"Do what you say," Jesse lists with his little fingers as they enter the nearest fast-food restaurant, lining up at the counter, "Talk to you properly. Don't go where you can't see me and if we're somewhere busy, stay beside you — can I hold your hand like this?"

"Sure," he agrees, squeezing. Jesse squeezes back.

"And behave. I get toys or money if I behave well." There's a momentary pause, before Jesse says quietly, "Can you not tell on me if I misbehave, Uncle Mark? Mama will not let me go out with you again."

He’d like to spend more time with Jesse and he knows Addison, so he nods. “I won't tell her. But you really have to be a good boy.” he says, as the line moves forwards, the busy cashier looking to them for their orders.

"C'mon," he instead steps forwards, eyes briefly scanning the boards for specials. Mark then belatedly realises that Jesse wouldn't know much about fast food because he’s not so sure Addison and Derek has ever brought him to one. "Uh, can I get some chicken nuggets and fries, please?"

"Would you like to make that a meal?"

"Yeah. Coke," Mark decides. "Can I get a kids version as well, with Sprite?"

"Of course. Is that all?"

"Yeah."

Paying, he shuffles Jesse off to the side by the wall, scoping out a table for two before he asks Jesse, "So, what’s new? How’s school? How many friends do you have? What is your favourite class?"

Jesse taps his fingers across the plastic bubble covering the kid's toys. Briefly, his hand curls into a fist. "I have two best friends and my favourite class is ballet. We have a recital next week."

“You have ballet in your school?” he questions, slightly surprised that the curriculum has changed since last he went to kindergarten.

“No. I have ballet after school. Rosita takes me.”

“Ah, now that makes more sense. Silly me.”

Jesse laughs enthusiastically, “I can do all the five positions. Do you wanna see?”

“I do. Of course. But maybe later when we’re outside. It’s a little crowded in here. There are too many people.” he says, looking around at the crowd of people.

“Okay.”

"So, your friends, what are their names?" he asks tentatively.

"Ryan and Megan."

“Is Megan nice to you?”

Jesse nods.

“Is she pretty?”

He shrugs.

“You like her, huh?” he teases, “You know, when I was your age — you know what, it’s nothing to brag about,” his ability to go from girl to girl even in kindergarten is no reason to boast, “But if you want, l could help you with Megan. Make her your girlfriend.”

Jesse makes a proper fist, now, lightly tapping Mark’s hip. The urgency in his eyes alarms him. "Megan is my _friend_," he says, almost pleading. "I don’t like her like that!"

_Shit_, Mark thinks, crouching down so he's more on Jesse’s level. "Hey, it's alright. I’m sorry. You guys are just friends. I get it. You don’t like her like that. My bad. Let's get our food and find a table, then you can tell me more about your ballet recital, yeah? Can I come?"

Jesse nods his head. “I don’t know. Mama only bought two tickets.”

Hearing their order, Mark stands up to get it, Jesse following close behind him as he sits them down in a corner booth that he manages to snag. Handing Jesse his activity box, he sets his own food out properly — fries in with the nuggets — before looking to the boy with an encouraging nod, nonverbally telling him to start eating.

Jesse picks up one of his fries, nibbling on it for a second. "I hate maths," he says, continuing to answer the questions he had asked, "My teacher is old and mean. She make me do maths."

"Maths is evil," says Mark calmly, putting one nugget into his mouth whole, even though he’s always enjoyed maths. Jesse eats more of his fries, then tries to speak through it all. Mark stops that with a quick, "Don't speak with your mouth full."

Swallowing quickly, Jesse says, "Mama is scary when she teaches me maths."

"It’s all in the eyes, isn’t it?" he says and Jesse chuckles along. He knows that look, it’s the look she gives him all the time — like she’s almost about to roll her eyes but she’s too frustrated/annoyed/fuming with angry that she just can’t take her eyes off him.

"Papa is nicer. Mama can get really mean,” Jesse says this in a matter-of-fact way, biting into a chicken nugget and immediately recoiling. "What is this?"

Suddenly wary, Mark swears. "It’s a chicken nugget. Don’t you know what it is.”

Jesse shakes his head.

“Shit — are you vegan?"

"What's a vegan?"

"Oh, no. Shit." Addison’s rule about_ 'no junk food' _does not make any sense because she should have just said _‘no meat’ _instead. That would have made a lot more sense.

_Because how was he _ _supposed to know that they’re suddenly vegan?_

"Shitty shit, you're a vegan. Why didn’t your mom tell me that you’re vegan?”

Jesse asks again, "What's a vegan?"

"_You_," Mark says, quickly taking all his chicken nuggets and dumping his chips into Jesse’s activity box. "Don't tell your mom I gave you chicken. You know what, actually, spit it out — it might _kill_ you."

Looking visibly freaked out, Jesse spits the bite of nugget into a napkin. He stares at Mark with a betrayed expression, "I thought you love me."

"I do —"

"You just try to kill me."

"No," Mark attempts to salvage the situation, "No. no. Eating chicken won’t kill you, Jesse. Well, unless you eat it raw and get salmonella, then that —” he stops his rambling, tries his best to collect himself because he’s only freaking the kid out further, “It‘s just an expression. Okay?"

_Please. Please be okay._

But Jesse just whines. "I wanna go home! I want Mama!”

"Jesus Christ," Mark mutters, but Jesse begins to cry, tears tracking down his cheeks, screaming for his mother. "Fuck," he mumbles under his breath, turning crimson red in embarrassment as the other patrons gawks at them and gives him the stink eye.

Standing, he hurriedly packs their food away, abandoning their drinks to escape. Two minutes later, they’re in a cab and he’s trying his best to calm Jesse down, telling him that they’re almost home and he’ll be able to see Addison in no time, all the while dread of her wrath and his failure sinks in.

Addison meets them at the door, she must have seen them coming up the curb. There is concern and confusion written all over her face when Jesse runs toward her, burying his face into her stomach. He watches her hug her son before crouching in front of him, rubbing his back and wiping away the tears with the pads of her thumbs as she tells him to calm down and take deep breaths.

“What’s going on? What happened, Mark?”

Mark winces as she scans him and the food, making a worried noise.

“I’m so _so_ sorry, Addison. I didn’t mean to give him chicken. I — I, I didn’t know. And I said something that I shouldn’t have and he freaked out. I didn’t know you guys are _vegan_.”

Addison straightens up, looks even more confused with one brow raised up high. “Vegan? We’re _not_ vegan.”

“Excuse me?” he questions, even more taken aback now.

_Not vegan?_

He must not have heard her right.

“We’re not vegan. You know how I feel about veganism. Remember?”

He remembers, they all_ (the three of them and Naomi and Sam)_ were in the Hamptons and they went skinny dipping that night.

_Some people think veganism gives them psychic powers._

“We eat clean and organic, only. No mystery meats. No junk food. No McDonald’s.” she narrows her eyes at him, then. “He’s never gone to one before.”

Mark wants to cry. The last fifteen minutes has been the absolute worst. He’s never felt more creepier in his entire life than he did at the restaurant. And knowing that his mistake could cause him Jesse.

_Some people think veganism gives them psychic powers._

He can’t help the chuckle that escapes him. And that gives way to a full-blown laughing fit.

Addison looks at him, puzzled.

Tears are streaming down his face now and his stomach hurts from laughing too hard. He thinks he just aged twenty years.

“What’s so funny?”

He shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions without getting the facts. But was just so nervous the entire time, spending the afternoon with Jesse, that he wasn’t thinking clearly at all.

“So, I freaked out for nothing. And in turn, I freaked your son out, too.”

"That’s what you get for not listening to me with, Mark," she tell him, hiding a smirk in Jesse’s red curls, “Come on, don’t beat yourself up over it.” she tells him, patting him once on the shoulder. “I’m not mad. You just haven’t been around in a while to know the change. It was all Derek’s idea. You know, the saying — _‘you__ are what you eat’._”

"It was an honest mistake," he mutters one last time, waiting a moment before following Addison and Jesse as they make their way back to the living room, the boy already on her hip and asking what a vegan is.

“You look like you could use a drink. Derek is in the shower. Dinner is almost ready.”

And here Mark thought he was going to have a nice time out with his _nephew_.


	8. 2005 : the moment in question (3) — what remains when the flowers die?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subject: Experimenting on erotic asphyxiation  
WARNING. Read with caution.

**Unhinged**

_ **(** **AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**2005 : the moment in question (3)**

_ **what remains when the flowers die?** _

-:-

_"I can no longer see you with my eyes, touch you with my hands but I will feel you in my heart forever."_

_— _ _Anon_

* * *

**. . . 1991 . . .**

* * *

After another long day, and another one of Bizzy's outlandish parties _(because, for whatever reason, the rich throws parties to show off their wealth)_, which he mostly attends because Addison has to, which means Derek, too, and he can’t leave his best friend in room filled with rich snobs. Derek hasn’t the first clue how to deal with those bastards, and he has been doing exactly that his entire life. _(And he also goes just for the free booze and a girl to take home)_ And now he finds himself at his father's office. He had fled his drunk date early, leaving her in the care of Addison and Derek, whom, he knows, would see her home safely. But right now, he can feel it in his throat, the unshakeable nerves that plagued him whenever he is about to confront Arthur Sloan.

It is strange, this feeling. He feels as though he's sinking, swimming, and it makes him feel so vulnerable and exposed that he can't even find a way to express it.

Maybe it isn't wise to have left the benefit early after all.

It's late, but Sloan Properties is still in full swing, tireless interns shuffling financial plans on wide desks, assistants crowding the coffee machines and jetting in and out of various offices.

"Mark _Sloan_." he emphasises on his surname so Arthur's new and shiny secretary would know whom she's dealing with and knowingly winks at her, reaching over to toy with a strand of her hair, barely skimming the sleeve of her dress until she allowed him into his father's office unannounced.

He walks in on his pensive father, who, as always, appears empiric as he sits at his desk, typing something into his computer.

"Father," he coughs, such formality foreign on his tongue after the months he's spent avoiding him. He hasn't seen his father ever since he started medical school, but he's talked to him on the phone _(more like he listened while his father yelled)_. His father looks up sharply, icy blue eyes nearly cutting him down where he stood.

"Mark," Arthur says, clearing his throat. "I wasn't expecting you tonight."

"Your secretary let me in," he leers, a weak attempt at bonding with his father. Arthur remains unmoved though. "I came to see if you had work that needed to be done, or —"

"Cut to the chase, Mark," Arthur says. "What is it that you want? Money? Is there some strip club that won't let you in?"

"Look, I've been trying —"

“Trying?" Arthur's laughter is cruel as he pushes up from his seat. "I can see how hard you've tried every time I get a call from Columbia complaining about your declining grades. And what is this about you showing up drunk to class? Still a problem even in medical school, I see. The only reason why you’re still in there is because of me and my donations. You need to grow up."

"Things are different now," Mark rasps. His voice cracks, and he hates himself for it, hated the way he turns into a young boy dragging at his father's feet when he tries to plead his case. "I have …" _Addison_. He doesn't say her name, but he thinks of her all the same.

He can't eat. He can't sleep. He can't think about anything else but her. It's different now because this time, it's all Addison’s fault. But he’s waiting for someone who'll never love him back, and even he thinks that it's pathetic. He’s pathetic. That's not love. It's an obsession. The love he once had has changed and is now rotting.

His father steps away from his desk, a familiar spark of anger lighting his eyes. Mark wonders if being heartless is hereditary.

"Pull another stunt, and you'll be out on the streets. Remember who's been paying for your tuition," Arthur says, slamming his fist against his desk. "Do you think you're anything more than an obligation? Do you think you're something to be proud of?" Words batters like fists in a game Mark knows all too well. His nostrils flares, his father's face reflecting his own as he remembers himself — six years old, dreams uncrushed ...

_"Daddy, look! I learned a new note on the piano. I can play a whole song now."_

_"Do you think real men play that nonsense? Do you think you'll be good for anything with a skill like that?"_

_"Daddy —"_

_"Sometimes I wonder if you really are my son."_

... nine years old when he was left alone in a hotel room.

_"Father, come back soon."_

_"I will. Just stay here. Don't go anywhere. After my meeting, we'll go out for ice cream. So, be good."_

_"Okay."_

And he _couldn't/wouldn’t _say a word for the next two years.

He stopped talking.

Mark stares into the eyes of a man who steps on lives and uses them for his own personal gain, even at the expense of his only child, his son. Arthur Sloan taints hope until its definition is lost.

His eyes blazes when he spits, "Fuck you, you wouldn't have all of this if it wasn't for me!"

And when Mark's back hit the wall, when Arthur's fist come down like a reminder, a snap breaks through the room and blood rushes to skin, announcing to the world that love does not live there.

**xxx**

Mark numbs it down. He takes a sip of his drink for every drop of rain that falls outside, his gaze unfocused on the ceiling above him. He curses his high tolerance, curses being able to drink a brewery without feeling an ounce of tipsiness.

His cheek is sore from where his _fucking_ father had hit him, his car forgotten as he ambled home, far away from the hellhole that built a family of stone. He holds the telephone in his hands, then, taps out Addison's home number and he stares, waits and thinks if he should key in the last number.

_6_

He slams the handset down hard, types her number, thinks of what he ought to say.

_I need you. You're my friend. I need a friend. Please come over. You’re the only one who’ll understand._

He erases, he repeats, but he leaves out the last number.

_6_

It is then that he hears a knock on his door. He yells for the intruder to go away, downing the rest of his glass and wincing against the sting of alcohol. But the knocks comes again and again, more insistent this time.

Mark stumbles over to pull open the door, fury written all over his face. And then the world shifts to soft beautiful things with paintings and sculptures and books filled with his favourite passages of literature and strains of music lilt through the wind, like howling wolves in guise of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Addison stands before him, like fate, still dressed in her outfit from the party.

Her chest heaves, she's a little wet from the rain, her eyes bright, hair damp and waiting as they stare at each other.

"_You're_ here, Red," he says, eyeing her hair, curly and wet around her face and she pushes the slick red strands that’s sticking to her face back.

Addison nods, walks in, pushing the door behind her a little bit, so there’s a crack. "_We're_ here. Derek's just getting the mail."

_Right_. But he had thought they would stay at her place tonight.

There was something else she was going to say. He watches it wither and die on her lips the second she catches sight of him again. He knows what she's seeing — black eye, swollen split cheek. He angles himself away, self-conscious as he shuffles back in the apartment.

Addison is undeterred.

"What happened to your face?"

She has his jaw in her hand before he can get a word in edgewise, before he can pull away, gentle fingers turning his face toward the light.

"Nothing. I was running and I tripped."

The room is silent for long seconds.

"Again?"

He makes a noncommittal sound and she raises her fingers to the bruised skin beneath his eye. She doesn’t touch, but holds her hand so close that he can feel it anyway, like a phantom caress.

"Guess so." he tries to plaster on an expression that feels like a smile. It probably isn't from the way Addison's expression only darkens further.

Her mouth sets in a grim line. "If someone hit you —"

"No one hit me, Addison. Let it go." he replies, his voice slightly irritated, standing at the other end of the room, his arms folded across his chest. "Can we please not point out the obvious?"

But then, he can't do anything about the crack in his voice now. He's troubled and embarrassed; his right hand briefly reaches for his face, the burning pain in his stomach immediately spreads and he turns around, hides, cowards away because Mark Sloan doesn’t cry. Not in front of anyone he doesn’t. “I'm — I’m broken."

"Mark," she whispers, reaching a hand out to touch his back. He jumps slightly at the contact, turning his head to look at her for the quickest second before his eyes falls away again. “Come here.” and she closes the distance and wraps him up in a gentle embrace. He can feel himself crumbling even more, something _shifting_.

Her heart hurts when she feels the dampness from sheded tears on her skin.

"I’m here." she finally whispers into his hair, fingers confidently brushing through the strands and he shudders, breath stuck in his throat. “You’re not broken. You’re — you’re —” she stutters, trying to find an explanation, “You’re Mark.” is what she comes up with. “And if you are, I’ll fix you.”

His eyes flutters at the sensation, falling closed comfortably as each muscle relaxes one by one. _You don’t know what you don’t know._ And then, "I'm all alone."

A beat. A breath. "Not anymore."

He would want them to stay like this forever but then, the door creaks open and they break apart when Derek clears his throat. ”What’s going on here?” he asks wary. And he turns to look at his best friend. “Man, what did you do?”

“Why does everybody assume that it was my fault? Why do I have to be the bad guy?” he says angrily before storming into his room with a resonating slam of the door.

Once he’s flopped onto bed, he stares at the ceiling and thinks about how justifiably fucked up he and his life has become. From his mom to his father and everyone in between. He just wants to go back in time and fight harder because he could have — he could have fought harder.

_Father, don’t leave me here_, _please_, he had screamed the second time, but no words had voiced out, he _wouldn’t_ speak, and his father left for his meeting, coming back later than usually and taking him out for ice cream later.

It’s dark, the shadows shifts faintly in the moonlight. There’s a faint chill of fear sinking over him like a heavy blanket. He remembers being a child, in his bedroom. He’d outgrown nightlights, supposedly, but the fear had lingered. Now, he mimics his childhood habits, crawling to the very edge of the bed and then, leaping forward, landing in a heap in the middle of the room. Too far for anything to _grab_ him.

He clicks the light on. He’s in his apartment — one that he shares with Derek. Mark stares at himself in the mirror. He is an adult. He is being ridiculous.

He’s almost twenty-four.

Nothing, no one is going to hurt him anymore.

He’s old enough to fight. He’s strong enough, too.

He hears their pitter-pattering footsteps all night, the clinking of silverware against plates, their hushed whisperings, the television humming lowly until Addison says, _“Goodbye, Mark,”_ softly, cautiously at his door, then, a few minutes later, the front door opens and closes shut.

Derek knocks and he lets him in and he tells him about his encounter with his father.

* * *

What they do is not about release, though the thoughts in his head steer him that way. And as he looks at her bareback before him, she is so pale and soft-looking that he thinks if he is to press his hand against her, he will sink inside like the fluffiest pillow.

He wants, needs to see her beautiful face, so he rolls her over and it's a testament to her flexibility that they can arrange their limbs and slide together and he is inside her and she is kissing him and he knows that she is inside him too, deeper and more intimate. This isn't fucking, this is making love and it's been far too long.

Their rhythm is slow, deliberate, and neither of them are in a rush. This is a connection, something Mark had thought was lost forever and they've done something akin to this act before but this time it's different, this time Addison chose to be present, to be here and _seen_ and when they build together and reach their peak together, it's joining them anew.

He is almost loath to categorise this feeling inside as happiness and yet - _what else to call it, if not exactly that?_

**xxx**

"You're so beautiful," he whispers and lowers his head and noses along her jaw, holding her in place with a soft hand at the back of her head.

With a groan, she lets herself fall back on the couch, letting him take charge and do what, she has heard over the years, he's good at. The ceiling above her looks like swathes of white silk, billowing in the wind. If it falls down any lower, she might just let it swallow her whole. She blinks tightly, once, twice, narrows her eyes and tries forcing the silk to turn back into a ceiling again.

_Back to normal._

"Your skin is so soft. It's like running my hands on silk," Mark says, kissing her love-bruised chest and she hisses in pain at the sting before she even has the chance to roll her eyes at his passé blarney.

She had forgotten all about the wretching pain in her chest and heart and suddenly all that she could care about is the need to absolve them, to make them stop hurting her. She knows what she has to do, so she lets herself be drowned in Mark's voice, whispering _sweet nothings_ into her ear because she knows they're nothing but false truths.

He's sweet, too sweet to/with her sometimes. Too sweet for her kind. She does not like this - sweet and sensual and savouring the moment as much as she would like to be fucked.

"Your eyes are like the sea, so blue and deep that sometimes I'm afraid I'll drown myself in them."

_Maaaark_

She groans again and digs the heels of her hands into her eyes until she sees little sparks, frustration meandering and coming closer and closer. And it's not because of what his hands are doing to her.

She is just so tired.

It's not that she minds him being ... _this_, it's just that _this_ isn't what they both need right now. She wants to be _fucked. _She likes the way it feels, likes the feeling of being ... open _(no pun intended)_, all other thoughts driven directly out of her head by the driving press of Mark inside her, hard and unrelenting.

"Stop that," she snaps.

"They remind me of the ocean."

"Cliche, Mark," she chides.

"No," he says, because she doesn't understand. "I don't mean that your eyes are blue, or green, or beautiful." he peers into her eyes, and she lets him look. _See_. "They're cold. Full of hidden depths." Mark's lips quirk up despite himself. "Concealing a frightening amount of dangerous things."

"Some would say that's not very flattering." Her smiles match his because just when she thought he couldn't possibly surprise her, he goes and does exactly that.

* * *

**. . . 1999 . . .**

* * *

Tiny hands splash the surface of water with obvious delight, sending droplets flying above the edge of the bathtub. It appears that rolling his sleeves up to prevent them from getting wet was a futile endeavour, Derek reasons as another spatter of water lands on the front of his already soaked shirt. Still, he continues to pour handfuls of warm water over his son's back, ignoring the distraction. Jesse babbles happily, conversing to himself, obviously enjoying his bath and being surrounded by water.

"Your Mama likes baths too, you know," he says with a smile. Nothing makes him happier than seeing him take after his mother. "But she is usually less enthusiastic," he explains as another drop leaps for freedom from under Jesse's playful fingers, this time reaching his face.

“I don’t get it,” he says, “Don’t tell Mama this but aren’t you just sitting in your own filt? Not you, of course. You’re a baby.”

The laughter that now grows louder as Jesse sends another sprinkle of water to land on his neck, a rather purposeful aim. He returns to his chatter as he sponges his tummy, evidently having a lot to talk about.

"I have not considered that. Hmm, please go on," Derek encourages his undistinguished talk.

The_ ‘conversation’_ continues and Derek marvels at his son's intelligence, soaking up every sound.

"That is all very insightful," he concludes, putting the sponge aside, "But can you say dada? Da-da."

Jesse looks up at him, his eyes brilliant and full of curiosity, and laughs.

"Da-da," he tries again, but to no avail as his son returns to be mesmerised by the surface of the water.

_Splash. Splash._

"Really, Derek?"

_Splash. Splash. Splash._ As if to warn him that Mama is back.

The voice startles him, and he looks up at once, caught in the act. He sees Addison standing in the doorway, arms crossed, smiling with amusement.

"Talking to a child is vital to their development," he tries to explain, but she merely raises an eyebrow, not bothering to comment on how feeble his excuse is.

He falls silent, admitting defeat, as she steps closer, making Jesse turn his head instantly with a smile, happy to see that Mama is home.

"I thought we agreed to let him discover his own words," she says, setting the towel down on the counter, "This is not a competition."

Jesse has been more and more talkative as of lately, a clear indicator that fully formed words will soon follow. And Derek seems to have wanted his name to be the first one.

Addison reaches down and takes her son out of the bathtub; if he is unhappy to be abandoning the water, he does not show it, cuddling to Addison at once. She sits Jesse down and wraps him securely in the towel before lifting him up again.

"At least _da-da_ did a wonderful job of bathing you," she says to her son while giving Derek a puckish smile, "Shall we dress you?" she makes her way out of the bathroom and Jesse expresses his agreement with another lively babble.

**xxx**

The same chatter fills the park the following day as Addison takes Jesse outside to show him the newly blossomed flowers. The tiny head turns in all directions, taking in the colours and shapes with glee, pure rapture in his eyes. He seems to be particularly captivated by the cherry blossoms, hands reaching out, trying to touch them. Derek watches them both from a distance, his heart swelling in his chest; his goddess of spring and their son, he cannot imagine a more perfect picture.

The garden is in full bloom and so are they.

He finally dares to enter their paradise, joining them in garden, just as Addison picks up a cherry blossom and gives it to Jesse who examines it with delight, petite fingers touching pink petals repeatedly.

"Has Mama showed you all the flowers?" he asks and Jesse's head lifts instantly at the sound of his voice.

"Mama," Jesse says suddenly, looking back at Addison. The word startles them both, leaving his lips so swiftly, they are unsure if they heard him right.

"What did you just say?" she cradles their son’s head, smiling.

"Mama," he repeats, then turns her focus to the flower in her hands, and Addison now looks back at Derek with a triumphant smile.

"It looks like we have won," she kisses her son's cheek.

"I thought you said it was not a contest," Derek frowns, unexpectedly bested at his own game.

"Well, definitely not a close one," still smiling, she teases him and walks towards him, hand reaching out to stroke his cheek.

"But do not worry, he still loves you," she leans forward to kiss him, and Jesse's hands pat eagerly against his chest as if to confirm Addison’s words.

Derek wraps his arms around Addison's waist, pulling them both close. Few cherry blossom petals fall around them, sealing the moment of serenity. There is no worry; he has never felt more of a victor. He has everything he has ever wanted.

* * *

When she looks at Mark, he is looking down at her legs, caressing them again.

"Mark," she says, voice as soft as a whisper, but she's not entirely sure what it is she wants to say.

When he finally lifts his face, his eyes are even darker than before, purple coloured, maybe, diabolic and _red_. Her pulse quickened and her pupils are blown wide. Then, just like that, he lays both his hands onto her thighs, rough palms catching at the nylons.

_No. _She wants to say that, but no sound comes out. Her lips open, freezes right there and she feels a shiver run through her.

"I want," he murmurs and lays a heavy hand onto her panties, blunt fingers caressing the lace, the tiny satin bow sewn across the waistband. "Is this okay?" he asks.

He pulls down the lace, slowly, inch by inch as if he is savouring what he's doing - undressing her, unwrapping her as if she were a present, as if he has never seen her naked before.

_Well, he hasn't, really. Not entirely naked._

She tries to shrug away the peculiar mood he seems to be in now. "You don't need to treat me like I'm some delicate thing."

"I'd _never_ force myself on you."

She pushes up on her elbows, her back against the armrest and extending an arm up to brush the back of her knuckles over the faded scar on his cheek, one that she remembers him telling her a story about when he was a kid. If he was expecting another slap, he didn't show it. "No. I know you wouldn't. "

She leans in to kiss him softly.

"Then, I'll keep asking."

**xxx**

And then, there are those big hands and big arms wrapping around her and pulling her in with so much ease. She wraps herself around him, clinging to him as they kiss and kiss and kiss and she thinks she could spend the entire night doing this and the rest of tomorrow as well and the day after that too.

He lowers his head and noses along her jaw, at the fragrant juncture of her neck and holding her in place with a soft hand at the back of her head. She is damp and alive, and warm with sweat. Mark smells her, sets the sharp edge of his teeth on her flesh and bites, bites every-so-slightly.

"Why?" he asks after a while of wordless quietude, his voice breaking slightly. _Betrayed, _he feels by Addison and his own body for cracking out of its own volition. "Why did ..."_ you do that?_

She knew. She knows. He'd told her of what had happened to him as a child. He knew and he knows. She had told him, too - of hands that never touched her in places that mattered.

_Why did you do it, why now, why you or me, why?_

She only knows the answers to some of those questions. She shifts, the better to look Mark in the eyes. They glitter in the dark. She cards her fingers through his hair and he lets his eyes flutter shut, leaning into the sensation.

"I wanted to _see_ what it looks like on the other end, for a little while," she says.

"Did you like the _view_?"

"Yes and no."

"So, you _liked_ doing it?" he whispers, his voice raw as the night, "Strangling me?"

"I didn't like seeing you ... _struggle_ like that."

He knows there's more, so he presses on. He knows Addison long enough to know she never gives a complete answer without him having to always egg her on. "But?"

She swallows hard. "_But_ ... I liked how_ it_ made me feel," she says quietly.

"Made you feel _better_?"

She shoots him a look. "You know it didn't." A pause. "It was more ... informative. I felt _**powerful** _for a change_._"

Mark sits with that for a time. Allows it fester into his skin like creepy crawlies until they burn alight and painful. "You wanted to watch your suffering play out from an alternate perspective."

* * *

**. . . 1997 . . .**

* * *

Somehow, he knows exactly when her cover of sleep parts ever so slightly.

There is small twitch in her cheek when the first ray of sun lengthens through the window and slowly stretches across her face, nothing more than a fracture of a second, but it is enough to catch his attention. Still suspended in-between her vanishing dream and the reality of their bedroom, she feels tender fingertips brushing away the hair from her temple. It is immediately followed by nose gently nudging her skin and soft lips pressing against the exact spot the sun marked. The kiss is feather-like, her skin immediately warmed by his breath as his nose slides down, delineating the line of her cheek and securing its borders with another press of his lips. Her head leans into the touch instinctively as she sinks her other cheek into the pillow, arching her neck in a process, an obvious temptation for Derek’s wondering lips.

"I am trying to sleep," she breaths through half parted lips, concealing an involuntary sigh.

"It is already quite late," Derek murmurs into her neck, his raspy voice vibrating through her skin and travelling down to her chest, gradually awaking her heart.

"It’s not," she attempts to sound firm, but her tone remains barely audible through the crumbs of sleep still clinging to her mind.

He chuckles against her skin, sending the shudder within her further down and making it slowly simmer in her core.

"I was feeling lonely," he sulks while continuing to kiss her neck, sensitive nerves catching heat.

Addison finally opens her eyes and turns her head to look at him, finding the expected pretended pout on his lips. She reaches her hand to trace the shadow of the morning scruff on his jaw.

"I am certain you could have found something to occupy yourself with," she remarks, the hand now moving to his hair, dishevelled after the night. She adores that unpolished look of him.

"I did not want to leave you cold," he responds, taking her hand and kissing her palm.

"I am sure I would manage," she counters with a smile as his lips move to caress her wrist.

Derek raises his head, his brows furrowed, he looks almost hurt. _Almost_. Addison smirks and turns fully to rest on her back, arms on both sides of her head, taking her time lengthening her limbs.

"Let's see if I can change your mind," Derek says with a playful gleam in his eyes as he leans forward to capture her lips in a kiss.

Unhurriedly, his hand follows the line of her arm, until he reaches her hand, gently entwining his fingers with hers, his palm enveloping hers protectively. She interlaces their fingers, keeping his hand in place, her way of telling him she likes that he has stayed here with her, waiting.

His lips stretch in a smile against hers as he presses them more firmly, a silent seal of the sentiment. He moves his mouth over hers slowly, enjoying every place where their lips touch, fitting so well together, until Addison’s teeth impatiently grazes his lower lip, demanding more. _More_. She sinks into him like a hot bath, intertwining their legs and gasping for breath as the kisses grow more feverish, more frenzied, Derek’s grip tightening around his waist.

It is going to be a great day.

* * *

It _takes_ more than just strength to strangle someone. Because as it turns out, it takes surprisingly little pressure to do so. Four pounds of pressure to block the jugular veins, eleven pounds for the carotid arteries, and thirty-three pounds to block a trachea. However, it takes willpower, determination and _detachment_ to actually go through with it, even past it and further after that, to put enough pressure to prevent blood flow to the brain and the return of blood flow to the heart. Rendering them more than just a vegetable. Putting pressure to both sides of the neck, carotid arteries, where blood rushes thickest - suffocation by blood loss is guaranteed and a lot quicker.

But now, the facts are more or less irrelevant.

He closes his eyes, but in the dark behind his lids he sees another image superimposed - himself in Addison's place with soothing words, an accent, a quiet stream and Mr. Takahashi's hands stroking through his hair.

_"You're totally safe."_

Addison's pain isn't the goal here nor is her fear. And yet he tightens his grip on her neck, where he's able to feel her warm, pulsating heat against his fingers. She makes a low, distressed noise. It's bordering panicked, but not quite yet. Oh, he'll drink it down, caught between the counterpoint of Addison's _just-do-it-and-see-for-yourself _and his simmering interest of moving past what had happened to him almost thirty years ago. But pain isn't what he's after. That's not why he's doing this. He doesn't need for it to hurt. But then, he needs the pain to forget _it_ ever happened.

_"A quiet, peaceful stream. The sun is shining, and you can feel it warm on your skin. _ _You're totally safe."_

Some people are just into weird ... things.

_"You can feel free to relax and let the current carry you."_

It's poisoning him again. They'll all die together of this horrible festering care.

_"Nothing will happen to you here."_

She thinks of witch trials and survival training, of Navy SEALs being forced to drown so they know what it feels like. Her lungs burn, she wants to breathe in so badly.

She reaches up, paws at Marks's wrist. She feels trapped, taken, consumed.

Like a marriage.

_Mark wouldn't_, she tells herself even when the edges of her vision are turning black, and then red, her brain is on fire from lack of oxygen. She's sure her eyes are saying as much.

And Mark doesn't.

He lets go of her altogether, rubbing oh-so-gently at the screaming red stark across her neck as she hacks in a lungful of air.

She hangs her head, lashes low when Mark kisses the side of her neck. "Did it make you feel _better_?" she says, her voice slightly strained, slightly ragged, slightly _desperate_, slightly sad, "Did it?"

She's not sure if _better_ is even the right word to use here. It didn't make her feel any better - powerful, _yes_, but only because she had control over Mark's life, all of it for her to end in her hands. She wants to help. Wants him to see that too. That there's no fear. He's in control. Always has. Always is.

"Mark," she says, voice barely more than a whisper. His silence cannot mean well. "Mark?"

She hates that she wants to offer _it_ up again, flay herself to the bone and peel back her ribs to expose her still-beating heart in all its ugliness and power. She swallows the impulse down and lets Mark look at her in the low light.

This isn't about pain, but it isn't about pleasure either - not for either of them. It's immersion therapy. It's a re-enactment. This is about taking back what was taken from both of them.

She pulls back and rubs her thumb against the corner of his mouth. "Did it make you feel _**powerful**_?"

He places a hand on her wrist and pulls her away, covering her hand with his own and pulling it to his chest. Blood courses through her then, bringing colour to her cheeks and spreading down to her neck and chest.

The look of shame that crosses his face, followed closely by embarrassment startles her. His lips are chapped when she brushes her mouth against them.

_No._

**xxx**

After Addison turns to him glorious and rumpled, cheeks flushed and throat bruised. She looks brilliantly alive.

"Are you sorry about tonight?" he asks.

Addison seems to think about it, but not very hard and not very long.

"No," she says at last. "I don't know what that says about me - and I don't want to know," she says when Mark opens his mouth. "But _this_?" She sweeps her hand, and it means this bed and it means this night and it means _us_, "This is the nicest thing I've had in years. Maybe ever. So no, I don't think I can be sorry about tonight. I'm not that _selfless_. I'm not an angel either."

"You are," he says, "That and more."

She looks like she might protest, so Mark tugs her closer. Addison goes, loose-limbed and willing. Now it's his turn to shut her mouth with a kiss. They kiss for slow, dragging minutes, while time goes syrupy and eternity loops back around. By the time they part for air, her lips are swollen and her eyes are soft, and she's utterly forgotten what she was going to say, which suits Mark just fine.

* * *

**. . . 2002 . . .**

* * *

The small, round cake is slightly tilted, the cream spread almost evenly, with enthusiasm taking over precision. The unstoppable force of Derek's impeccable skills has met an immovable object of a little boy’s eagerness. Addison smiles looking at the lit candle placed on top.

"This is for you, Mama," Jesse says excitedly, hands gripping the tray tightly, happy to be able to bring her her coffee, a task usually reserved for Derek, who is now standing behind him, ready to intervene at the slightest shake of his hand.

But those remain surprisingly steady as he lifts the tray for her to take.

"Thank you. It looks wonderful," she looks at the flickering candle, a reminder of a day she had spent many years trying to ignore.

"I made it myself," Jesse announces proudly, "But, Papa helped a little," he adds offhandedly as though Derek's contribution was too insignificant to even mention.

She looks at Derek with an amused smile while he nods in silent concurrence of their son's superior baking expertise. Having be rid of his load, Jesse now clambers on the bed and settles himself next to her.

"Thank you for remembering my birthday," she says, hand reaching out to stroke her son's hair. “I almost forgot.”

"Papa remembered too," Jesse declares proudly as Derek moves from his spot to reveal a bouquet of roses displayed proudly on her vanity, the same one he gives her every year. And Addison knows it is surely just a first of his many gifts.

He sits on the other side of her, arm embracing her firmly as he presses a lingering kiss on her temple, silently mouthing _"happy birthday"_ against her skin.

"Blow the candle, Mama," Jesse orders, "And make a wish."

Addison does as she is told; she has never given the wish nonsense much regard, but now she genuinely feels like there is nothing more she could have wished for.

"Isn't it too early for cake?" she teases her son, trying to ignore the sudden surge in her heart, threatening to spill over.

"Is never too early for cake," Jesse pronounces matter-of-factly.

"Would you like half of it?" she asks and her son's eyes light up in an instant at the prospect of breaking the usual rules of breakfast.

"But it's your birthday, that's all for you," Jesse insists despite the obvious want in his stare.

"Yes, it's my birthday and it's my wish for you to share it with me," Addison says, taking the knife and cutting the cake piece in half.

Little fingers reach out eagerly and Jesse grabs his piece with excitement, not bothered to trouble himself with cutlery. Addison takes her fork and cuts into the remaining half, surprisingly soft and delicate, sampling the treat. It tastes delicious; a worthy offering of the combined skills of her husband and son.

"Papa said you didn't like to celebrate birthdays before," Jesse remarks, having swiftly finished his piece, now licking the cream off his fingers, "I think it is because you just needed me and Papa to celebrate with."

"Well, Papa always remembered my birthday," she mentions, feeling the arm around her waist pulling her closer. _Always_.

"That's because he loves you," their son concludes with a proud smile, his point proven.

The swelling in Addison's chest now becomes settled in her throat. She turns her head to rest on Derek's shoulder, wanting to disappear in his embrace before her emotions surface fully. She can feel their son pressing against her other side, eager to share the cuddle, and Addison's arm reaches out to hold him.

"What do you want to do today, Mama?" Jesse asks, still clutching her firmly. “You and Papa don’t have to go to the hospital today.”

"Oh, I don't know," Addison's head lifts as she tries to compose herself, "Maybe I will stay in bed and let you both look after me," she adds rather playfully, making Derek raise an eyebrow in pleased surprise.

It has never been like her to welcome too many birthday indulgences, she's never liked the notion of celebrating the years closer to death but she is ready to give into them now.

All she needed was love.

* * *

"Does one _crime_ excuse another?"

Mark isn't goading her, isn't trying to lay a guilt trip on her. He is genuinely asking, trying to map the lay of Addison's morality.

_Adultery_ is still illegal in many states, including the State of New York.

"There's no excusing this. What _we_ are."

He sucks his lip into his mouth, feeling the throbbing ache where she had bit him. He worries at it, drawing hurt from the wound like sucking marrow from a bone. "We?"

She doesn't miss the note of hope in his voice, plaintive and vulnerable.

She can't bring himself to say the words. Some things are too horrible to be said out loud. So, she pulls Mark closer and kisses the thin skin of his shadowed eye.

**  
xxx**

When she opens her eyes, Mark is too close, only a few inches away from her face.

The sight suddenly makes her irrationally, incandescently angry.

She shoves weakly at his chest and makes the mistake of looking directly into his eyes. They are too dark; they want too much.

Something shrieks and beats in her chest - hope is the thing with feathers they say. They neglected to mention that it has claws and teeth too. A bird, a _hope_, fragile and terrible.

He looks at her face with an expression she does not want to see.

She can't bear it.

"Don't look at me like that," she grits out and he stops all that he's doing as she pulls his head up sharply. His lips quirk up in a half-smile.

Her eyes are dark and fathomless. At this moment, Addison looks dangerous and impossibly lovely, and he thinks it's possible he's never loved anything more.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm you're entire world."

He holds his breath. Or he forgets how to breathe; it's hard to tell.

"But you are," he breathes, and it sounds like a promise because it is.

_I love you._

He's in love, and it's the worst thing that's ever happened to him _(one of the worst, he suppose)_.

She loosens her grip on his hair and sighs. The dark, dangerous thing that had surfaced in her eyes is gone now, a million miles away as she runs a gentle hand over the side of his face before covering his eyes with both of her hands and maybe pressing down with the balls of her hands a little too forcefully.

He can't see a thing now - just bursts of sparkling neon-bright stars behind dark blackness and she might just be hurting him, too.

But he doesn't care.

"I don't like you like _this_," he says and his heart squeezes in his chest. It's not untrue. He is not lying. Usually, he doesn't.

Addison, feeling her grasp on reality slipping, manages to open her mouth. "I don't like you looking at me like _that_."

He can't see her but he can definitely feel her when she leans in closer and he grabs blindly for her and they crash their lips together and drown.

For all the talk of beds, they don't make it anywhere near one. They touch and sigh, crushed together in the armchair that's too small for the both of them, sliding their lips together in a heated frenzy. It feels like a stay of execution. For all intents and purposes, it is.

Addison draws her legs up so she's kneeling on either side of his thighs, so she can press closer while they try to memorise the inside of each other's mouths with teeth and tongues. Mark runs his hands over her face, her back and neck and shoulders, then knots both hands in her hair and pulls. She makes the most delicious sound, a groan strangled and limned in pain, so he does it again harder, and Addison snarls and bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood.

She's finally let him see again, unwillingly perhaps, but he doesn't look at her like _that_.

It's love, and it's a fight, which means that it's perfect.

He shoves her off the chair, onto the floor, and she stares up at him bloody-mouthed and dazed in the second before he joins her.

"You are so beautiful," he says, and she bites him again, gentler this time, sucking delicate bruises along the curve of his jaw.

His voice is like smoke, feels like a caress in itself. "So are you," she says when she pulls back.


	9. 1992 : a look into the past — still and silent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subject: Child sexual abuse. Mentions, not explicit, of erotic asphyxiation on a child.  
WARNING. Read with caution.

**Unhinged**

_ **(** **AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**1992 : a look into the past**

** _still and silent_**

* * *

"Mark! There you are! Mark!"

He sees her quick as lighting in his peripheral vision, her steps echoing loudly in the quiet hallway. Twisting the key to his apartment, he pushes the door with a lot more force than necessary, resulting in a loud _bang_ when the knob hits the adjacent wall. He doesn't know how she got here the same time he did, considering he had stormed out of the coffee house before her, leaving her to face the aftermath of what he had done as he _ran_ home.

That's probably why.

"Mark!" he hears her shout again, but he doesn't bother responding to her, doesn't bother looking at her, doesn't even bother shutting the door behind him, or telling her to keep her voice down because they don't need another nuance complaint from the neighbours. "Mark, wait up! Mark! What's your problem?!"

She has a key to his apartment, he knows that. And only because her boyfriend is his roommate and best friend, so there's no point in locking her out. She will come in eventually, regardless of what he wants and says. And he knows himself, he will be compelled into letting her come in if she asks _(even if she doesn't.)_. And he will tell her everything; she doesn't even have to ask.

_Oh,_ he already knows he will.

"Mark, what the hell was that?" she asks, flushed and absolutely winded as she closes the door behind her. It looks like she had ran up the stairs.

He still can't look at her, doesn't want to, really, because he doesn't like how easy it is for him to dance to the sound of her voice. She can pry just about anything out of him.

Now, he can definitely hear her coughing and ragged intakes of breaths and he feels bad, but that wasn't even a lot of stairs. They only live on the third floor and the first is the lobby. Then again, Addison was never much of an athlete. So, he goes to the refrigerator to get two bottles — a beer for him and water for her, which he hands it over to her before going into the living room and throwing himself onto the couch.

Ignoring her completely.

She rounds a corner and stands over the back of the couch. "Aren't you going to tell me what happened back there?" she asks after a while. A gentle palm lays on his shoulder and he prickles at the touch even as he refrains from shrugging it off. It is odd because usually he would relish in having Addison touch him.

"Mark."

He is aware that she is watching him, can feel her intent and her unapologetic gaze is as solid as a physical presence in the room with them. It's wholly only for him and it's too much too scary but he stops himself from scrubbing his face with his hands and crumbling to pieces.

Instead, he looks up at her, bored.

"It was nothing."

"It was _not _nothing. You hit that man. What the hell is wrong with you?"

_You don't know anything._

“You want the long or short answer to that question? I'll just give you both: the long version, my shrink says that behind this rugged and confident exterior, I'm self-destructive and self-loathing to an almost pathological degree. The short, well ... a lot." he suddenly chuckles, tilting his head and flashing his boyish smile.

It seem to not break the mood entirely but to shift it, bend it to something else entirely. He wants to get out of having to talk about _it_ because just the thought of having to nettles.

Addison makes a face and settles on the couch beside him. "Be serious, Mark. What if he reports you for hate crime? He's Asian." she almost whispers at that, "And that's not a joke. It's bad. Really bad. What if you get arrested? What if you go to prison? You can't graduate. The University will expel you —"

"Can you stop that?" he intercepts, keeps himself from rolling his eyes, but just barely. He can't quite bring himself not to needle her, though. Just a bit. "You're really annoying, you know that. Especially when you go on in a tangent like that."

"He was minding his own business when you sucker punched him." she reiterates.

"Great. You're taking his side, now."

"I'm not taking sides. But from where I was sitting he did nothing wrong —"

"Of course! Because the great _fucking_ Addison is never wrong about anything!" he raises his voice for the first time in recent memory, until he's shouting, loud and sharp and ringing as loud as a siren throughout the room.

Everything goes very still, then.

He can't contain it anymore. He's positively livid, his heartbeat is in his ears and he sees red and he wants to hit something. Anything. There's something shiny and suddenly, his hand is reaching for the beer bottle and he plucks it off the coffee table and pitches it across the room. It shatters against the wall so loudly that he hears a sharp cry to his left.

_Shit._

Instinctively, she sits up, scoots away to quickly lean on the far end of the couch, pressing herself into the corner so she's well away from him, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Mark turns away, scrubs his face with his hands. _Fuck._

The aftermath of his grotesquely unprecedented outburst has left him ashamed and her terrified.

_Shit._

"But why are you getting angry at me?" she asks, voice barely a whisper and she looks so ... _hurt_.

"Because you won't shut up and just let it go." he snarls.

They sit in silence as his mind tells him to apologise to his friend. He should. Really should say he's sorry for shouting at her and throwing that bottle against the wall. And for scaring her altogether.

He doesn't offer her one, though. _An apology._ It's easier said than done.

He sits stiffly on the other end, face resting in his palm. This is so typical of him; he ruins everything. They were just supppsed to have coffee together before going their separate ways and now she's on his couch looking like she's about to cry. _Fuck_. He takes another quick glance at her then, she sniffs. But there aren't any tears. _Fuck_. Somehow, that's much _much_ worse. And also she's not doing anything; just sitting, staring, waiting, perhaps.

_Lost_.

He breathes a sigh tiredly and walks to turn off the lights before sitting right where he had been, only now with two clean tumblers in his hand and a bottle of bourbon. If he's going to talk about _it_, it's going to be under his terms and in dark enough lighting that she can't _see _him. Or he can't see her and himself.

"Bourbon?" he asks, pulling the chain of the lamp next to him on when he realises it might just be a little tad too awkwardly eerie without some illumination. The orange glow of the setting sun and lamp creates a nice shadow where it licks across her face and it takes everything in him not to reach out to feel the divine warmth there.

She seem to snap out of whatever haze she's fallen into, stops staring at nothing and turns to stare at him instead. If she's wondering why the lights are off, she doesn't ask. He has always liked being the focus of her attention but right now, the feeling doesn't agree with him entirely. He sits back onto the couch, his back resting on the armrest, eyeing her, evaluating her, trying to regain back what's left of his composure.

"I don't like bourbon," she murmurs, though still accepting the glass he offers. "It tastes like gasoline."

He drains his glass in one swallow and savours the smooth liquid burn of very expensive whiskey. He doesn't taste the notes of gasoline as she does but that doesn't mean he likes bourbon. It was gifted by his father last Christmas_ (the Sloan men preferred choice of poison)_ and he enjoys the feeling of wasting something of his father's more than he enjoys the indulgence itself. Shooting whiskey that's meant to be savoured feels like a small and hollow victory, but he can be petty, and he'll take his triumphs wherever he can.

Mark presses his tongue against his palate, chasing the taste even as he stands to refill his glass before sitting back down.

Neither speak, at first, a silent conversation happening in eyes and faces instead. He can see her thoughts across her face, concern and worry and everything showing in tiny twitches in the muscles of her brows and mouth. She looks at him, around him, her gaze shifting from point to point and back to his face. She looks at him, really studies him and he can feel her gaze on him as though it were a physical touch.

They're both somewhat patient and are comfortable with silence. He takes another sip, and she still doesn't. The two fingers of whiskey he had just had has done basically nothing because his tolerance is appalling, but he can almost feel the low simmer of it in his blood. He doesn't feel compelled to fill the dead air by talking, but he would have appreciated something else to gaze into, an alternative to staring at the glistening diamond of her hair clip, and the setting sun yawns dark and empty before them.

She's balancing the glass on her knee, watching him as he watches her bite her lip now. But it's not the sensual movement of someone losing control or trying to tempt another into tipping over the edge. He furrows his brow and she's looking, seeing; he thinks she knows.

The intensity that comes from sitting directly across from someone and staring into their eyes reminds him of therapy.

Staring into his drink, he swirls the amber around to watch the little syrupy trails it makes when it moves. "Takahashi." he breathes out, innocent as black ice, unseen and invisible, and Addison's eyes narrows, "His name is Mr. Takahashi. I don't know if he has another — that's just what my father called him."

She still studies him from her end, easy and relaxed, a cat playing a long game with a mouse, though some days it's hard to tell who's who. He wonders if she'll even push for more — she doesn't, so he offers it up.

"He’s — he is this, umm, brother of a real estate tycoon in Japan — they have two offices right here in Manhattan alone. He did business with my father for a couple of years. That's how I got to know him."

The room is dark enough now that it conceals some of their features from the other while they sip and speak quietly of private thoughts. In the way she has become, he has transformed too; captivated by this woman who has chosen to stay by his side even after the outrageous outburst he had just had. She is sitting a lot closer beside him, enthralled, and seeing him for what he is now, and the knowledge warms his insides more than the bourbon they drink.

When he speaks of the word_ 'abuse' __(it's nonspecific and non-scary of a word, which he likes.)_, the incidents seem to drag itself out of a locked closet in his mind, dust tainting the pristine surfaces of the other rooms. He swallows and trades looking at Addison for looking down at the dark amber in his glass.

She doesn't offer an awkward condolence for the _loss_ that had been buried under years and years of cemented dismissal, and he is glad. He doesn't like sympathy. Sympathy feels like spit on his cheek.

It's easier to talk about it without bringing emotions into it.

"Your father knew?" she breaks the silence that trailed his confession.

In all the times he's allowed to see Addison's inner thoughts and secrets bare before him — the moment is finally here for him to reciprocate. He meets the eyes to his left and considers. She meets his eyes evenly; they are clear and free of judgement. She is accepting of anything he will say right now.

"Maybe. Maybe I was the pawn." he shrugs, pauses before narrowing his eyes, like he's realised something for the first time. "He made a lot of money because of that man so I doubt he ever would have."

That's one of the many reasons why he doesn't associate with his father's money anymore.

She dips her head so her red curls fall on her face, then looks up at him again as removed as ever. "How long did it go on for?"

“Over two years. I was barely ten when it first started."

She leans forward and exhales slowly, a frown gracing her features now, "Because you weren't a _boy_ anymore."

He nods.

"You were old enough to remember what happened and too young to _emotionally_ grasp it."

This really feels eerily like a therapy session.

He finds it interesting how she chooses the word _'emotionally' _when emotions aren't something associated with _what_ he is. It's in that sentence he decides she really does understand him, it isn't a hoax or a game. She understands that not all monsters are born.

She nurses her drink while he pours himself a third.

"My father would sometimes take me with him to his business trips. Most of the time he'd leave me alone in the hotel room. Sometimes I'd accompany him to the meetings. It was fun."

He looks out of the window so she can't see his face; the clouds have covered the moon, and the pitch blackness reminds him too much of the dark spaces in his mind. And this time it feels like drowning. Talking about _it_ is like an out-of-body-experience and he's watching their conversation patter on around him like a heavy current.

_Watching. Observing. Seeing._

He's not ten, eleven, twelve anymore.

"_After _..." clearing his throat, he says, "My father would take me out for ice cream and then, to the arcade. They're a lot different in Japan than they are here — the arcades. He'd let me play whatever I wanted and we'd stay there for hours and hours and he'd be by my side, watching me play the whole time and he'd ..." he smiles, wry, "He'd _smile_ at me. It was the only time he ever did."

He bites his tongue against the urge to tell her that now as he looks through the album of his memories, it wasn't actually a grin that adorned his father's face all those times — he can see it clearly playing a reel in the back of his mind, can almost go back to that moment, he understands his father now more than he ever could; he was _grimacing_ in pity, patting him on the back as if to say_ "sorry, son"_.

_Sorry for doing this, sorry for being here, sorry you have to take care of me. Sorry, sorry, sorry._

When he looks back at Addison, there's the tears that she's fights. He can see it by the way her eyes slowly grow wet and blurry. By the way their outlines redden. And yet she still fight, for him she does, she must know he wouldn't want her to _'__overreact' _to something they both can't change or do anything about.

She continues fighting while he continues refilling his glass, a fourth, then, a fifth, and after a little while, the sharp stab of his past, the prick of his conscience eases. He feels mellow and light, suffused with muted pleasure, full of the smoky sweetness of the bourbon he's been consuming all night.

"I was traumatised," he admits finally, pretending the room is dark enough to cover their wounds and words, "I stopped speaking, I had difficulty sleeping and eating. It's typical for a child who experienced such ... _barbarity_ to shut down."

"Did you see a psychiatrist?"

"I saw at least five different psychiatrists. They all, more or less, said it was the trauma of losing my mother and finding her the way I did, so, I let myself believe it too. The truth was just too ... too _shameful _to even think about."

_Shameful_. He pushes out a shaky, stuttering breath and forces himself to stop. He curls his lips at the word and he hates it with every fibre of his being. _Shameful_. Because it makes it sound like he had a choice, that he was accountable, that the blame ought to be put on him and not _him_, that he enjoyed being used, that it was all _him, him, him_. He knows it _isn't_ and — no, he _didn't_.

_Shameful._

He's pathetic.

"Did you ever tell Derek?" she asks and pictures a small boy with messy, dishevelled hair, his wide eyes afraid and uncertain of the environment around him. Somewhere in her chest, the image makes her ache.

It never occurred to him to tell his best friend. Not then, and definitely not now.

“I actually hadn't thought about it in years. Not since it stopped. Not until today."

He had blocked it out.

She sets her glass down on the table and runs a hand through her hair, her mouth pulls down into another distinct frown while Mark help fills her glass.

"I believed what the psychiatrists said because I liked that version better. So, to me, on the surface, _it_ didn't happen. But, my mind knew, you know what I mean."

_More than anyone else._

"It must have made you an easy target, silenced and fearful." she whispers the words so quietly he could have pretended he didn't hear her. He doesn't, too enamoured by the fact that he's finally voicing out these haunting memories that he locked away deep in the palace of his mind.

"I was. I didn't speak for over two years. When it stopped, I began talking again. It's easy to torment someone who doesn't have the power to alert anyone else."

"No risk of being caught when the _victim_ can't speak."

_Victim_ hangs in the air, and the truth comes out that the predator was once the prey.

Addison sees the little boy petrified and _never_ bruised _(she knows men like Mr. Takahashi__ and they would never leave a trace behind.)_, the shadows on the walls moving around him and he has no where to go to escape them.

She stares at the man before her, reserved and calculated — dark and pained. He looks back at her, but the hard emptiness in his eyes is filled with humanity.

"It's easier to do more than torment them," she says finally, and the look that flickers across his face confirms her thoughts. She feels herself sobbing with no tears for _Mark_, for the little _boy_ still trapped inside him. She wants to hug him and stroke his hair and tell him all the great things that he'll become, of all the people who'll love him, but she knows it's not enough; nothing will ever be enough.

It takes a few minutes for him to speak again, and when he does his voice is hoarse, "It's easy to do anything to someone who won't scream."

Addison's blood feels cold when she gulps down the bourbon. She might as well have heard the sound of an animal caught in a trap, of an angry ghost wailing down a lonely dungeon corridor because it's all the same breaking her heart.

A moment passes between them before she's sitting right in front of him, face-to-face, knees-to-knees, and she tucked them to her chest, staring into the somber eyes of a lost child.

"I'm not a psychiatrist, but I always figured experiences like _that_ would interfere with sexual encounters as an adult. But you — _you_ don't seem to have any problem in that department."

"Maybe in some cases," he says smoothly, shrugging, "But I think the lasting effects of abuse sexually hinders women more than men. I haven't engaged ... with men ever since. And I don't see women as a threat."

She nods and fidgets with her hands in her lap, "It's rare for women to be pedophiles. Our instincts are inherently more different than men. We nurture, you lot destroy, statistically. I suppose we aren't a threat because you already know who has the upper hand."

Mark sits up and looks at her — _really_ looks. "Are you insinuating something, Addie?"

"No. Just that if push comes to shove, you'd have the advantage, biologically speaking."

She drains the last of her whiskey and stands up to grab the bottle, refilling her drink and topping off Mark's without waiting for permission. The tension holds and does not shatter.

He grits his teeth but keeps his face neutral, "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a rapist, Addison."

"I would never insult you and say that you are, Mark."

He backs off the defence then, and sips his drink, pivoting to look at the dying sun instead. He feels more than he hears her move, then there is a tentative hand slipping into the hair on the back of his neck. He shuts his eyes at the sensation, consumed by the violent memory of being shoved back onto a hotel room mattress and being held down. He remembers struggling and freeing an arm to claw at the face of his attacker, propelling forward to bite whatever skin he could latch onto.

"I wasn't compliant, Addie, I fought with all the strength I had," he leans back into the hand on his neck.

"I don't doubt it," she responds without thought.

Mark sets his glass on the table and moves closer swiftly, turning to face her. He smiles at her, his lips slowly pulling into the expression, "You're the only one in the whole wide world who knows my secret."

They're so close now, close enough that they breathe the same air and she is here and accepting him and all the ugly fate and circumstance that was casted upon him. Real tears slip down the sharp planes of his face and it's the first time he's let himself ever cry about it. He inches closer, waiting a second before closing the gap and kissing her.

He kisses her gently, and that's a little surprising, maybe the most surprising thing that's happened in all of history. There really isn't any point in kissing his best friend's girl. There really weren't any lead-up to the kiss; there were no subtext to land them here. If he counts that time they bonded in the basement of the University's cafeteria, her hands around his neck, both of them on the floor but Derek was there too.

If this was a TV show, this moment might be the culmination of some sort of plot arc. The critics would call it fan service, but it would mean something like personal growth. Like letting go.

Addison's lips are soft under his, just a little bit dry, and she feels smooth against his wet cheeks. His left knee itches, and he misses his _mom _so damn much, and he feels so homesick it actually hurts like a stomachache.

They kiss with their eyes open.

She knew it was coming and she's surprised by how little it bothers her when Mark presses down. She shouldn't be kissing him. Technically though, she isn't. She isn't really doing anything with her lips, just him. All Mark.

The kiss is sweet; it makes her stomach turn when he puts a palm on her face and strokes his fingers down the column of her throat. But what she is guilty of is not stopping him sooner and she hopes he will interpret it as a reaction.

He doesn't.

She lifts her own hand to his sharp cheek and parts her lips slightly, feeling the twitch of muscle at the contact.

It's he who brushes his tongue along her lips instead, and coaxes her to tangle his. It doesn't feel like a first kiss, they'd shared more intimacy than a kiss, but the closeness makes him feel less confused.

"Mark." she breathes against his lips in proxy for _"stop" _and shakes her head.

She tries to ignore the guilt again; she came here to find out why he had attacked the _zen-ful_ older man in the coffee shop, not cheat on her boyfriend and definitely not break Mark's heart. But she never would have thought she'd be told this, a devastating tale of a boy and the innocent-looking monster.

He lifts his hand to lightly rest on her side and that's when she quickly slide away, "I should, ahh, leave."

He frowns at her, looking at her from under the hair that hangs on his face. "Oh ... oh, yeah. Okay."

_Sorry_ is still too hard a word right now.

She's torn in the moment, wanting to leave and pretending she's never heard any of what he's told her. It only complicates things, Mark wouldn't have shared it with her if he wasn't completely sure she wouldn't look at him differently — that one with the pity eyes, pouty lips and a knowing look. She wants to, she feels sorry for him. But she knows that look all too well, knows how dehumanising it can be. He would be guarded and careful whenever he's around her and that can ruin their _friendship_.

"Goodnight, Mark," she says, swiping tears that had managed to tumble down his cheeks with the pads of her thumb before turning to leave. Addison barely makes it to the threshold before she hears him calling out for her.

"Red, wait!"

She turns around to see his presence looming behind her.

“Can you — can you not tell Derek? Please."

"Of course," she says softly, reassuringly. He wasn't planning to. "Don't worry. I promise I won't tell Derek — or anyone." she tells him and he nods absently.

She's only taken one step further towards the door before he takes her hand shyly in his, just like that, skin to blood-hot skin, and saying nothing else. Addison squeezes it back reassuringly and he shakes his head, seeming to have regressed back to the nonverbal child that he was.

"Was there something you need, Mark?"

Another childlike shake of the head.

"Derek is almost off work. Maybe you could stay." he says at last, "If you want to wait for him, I mean."

She looks at his big, glistening eyes staring at her with despair; the devilish diddler that she's seen and known him to be is replaced by a hopeless innocent little boy.

Addison Montgomery would have never anticipated that Mark Sloan could ever wear her down and make her soft for him. Her heart is beating like a rabbit's and it's all because of him.

She understands what he means and smiles.

"Okay."

"I'll wait with you, then."

They don't talk about it, the kiss. He just flops back onto the couch, flicking through the channels.

NBC is showing reruns of Law and Order again, and Mark lets it play. The formula is comforting, the way it always is. Things make sense on TV. The good guys win, and the bad guys get what's coming to them. There's rising and falling action. Mostly there's _resolution_. He's figured that out a long time ago already, as a kid, when TV was what comforted him.

Addison comes back, breaking their silence with a glass in her hand and two small white pills, and he wonders how he didn't notice that she wasn't beside him. Regardless, he takes them without argument.

"You shouldn't take anything without asking what they are first."

"I trust you," he says without looking away from the screen. He picks up the last of his bourbon and takes a sip, pursing his lips at the bitterness.

"You shouldn't trust anyone."

Addison sits on the sofa so that she's not touching him, but Mark is not not-touching her either. Detective Logan plays the bad cop, getting into a perp's face with righteous anger, slamming his hands against the table and throwing a chair into the one-way mirror.

He already knows how it will end, and that's the best part of all.

"You are not anyone to me."

"For all you know, it could be poison."

"Well, was it?"

"Of course not," she replies. She gives him a stern look and he finally notices the open book on her lap. _The Art of War_. "I'd never hurt you. At least not intentionally. Never say never."

"Although now would be the best moment to," he adds with a smirk, she slaps him on the arm and they share a laugh.

And then, memories comes back. Good ones this time. Of masquerade balls, champagne and fancy finger foods.

It wasn't hard to find her.

Even without knowing the colour of her dress, Mark had spotted her the second he stepped foot into the masked soirée of a sea of Montgomery's pretentious and pompous socialite confrère.

Faces, faces everywhere.

No mask alike, no names being exchanged out loud.

Addison just wasn't like the other girls; it was as easy as that.

She stood in the middle of the dance floor looking every bit the pure and innocent Virgin Mary that she wasn't — head to toe in white lace, save the hint of creamy thighs revealing through the long slit of her dress. In front of her eyes _(because Addison Montgomery would never compromise her elegant up-do with the straps of a mask) _held up with a wand was a dainty white bird mask with outstretched feathered wings on either sides.

She looked positively delicious.

He tore his gaze away from her long enough to make his way to the dance floor. His best friend wasn't by her side and he's almost certain that Addison had told him to get drinks at the open bar.

"Your highness." he whispered into her ear and she spun around quickly on her heels. A smile adorned her face when she looked him in the eyes.

"You recognised me."

He kept his eyes on her, "I would recognise you _blindfolded_."

She chuckled, pulled down her mask and when he saw her face in its entirety, he had to hold back an audible gasp.

She was beautiful.

"You're the _Devil_," she stated in wonder, not taking her eyes away from his.

He would hardly call it the Devil. It was just a skull shaped mask with veins of blue and red running through his mask, and into his skin, moving blood and forcing his breaths. Red blood, red like the lines of his mask, red like the monster in his eyes, red like the world he was born into.

He laughed at that, gentle and almost mocking. "What does _this_," he gestured to her ensemble, her white mask and black dress, "make you, Red? An archangel? Virgin Mary? Satan in disguise?"

"No," she murmured.

She held a hand out, palm up, and waited only a moment before he filled it with his as she explained that it signified her desire to be _free _from whatever she was shackled to.

He didn't press on any further. He didn't want to ruin her evening with Derek by conjuring up unwanted memories.

**xxx**

Whatever mystery pill she had given him had now smooth everything out, both the pain in his chest and the nattering in his head. Within a few minutes he feels sleepy, warm and blissful, and sees no reason not to curl into Addison's side. It's a natural progression to slink down until his head is pillowed in her lap. She seems unbothered. And she lifts her arm to make room for him without raising her eyes from the book she was reading, and he tucks the back of his head into the crease where her stomach meets her thigh.

He drowses there like that, content to float in that liminal space between sleep and waking. Time passes, but he's not sure how much. Time seems irrelevant. After a while Addison starts to stroke his hair, an absent gesture like petting an animal.

"Did a stranger touch you, too?" he asks, bringing his head upright and watching the world spin. To his own ears, there's no hint of a slur in his words, but whether that's objectively true is anybody's guess. "Is that what you wanted to be _free_ from?"

Addison stills, hand hovering in midair for a moment, before she turns the page and continues petting. "He wasn't a stranger."

He blinks his eyes closed for a moment and turns back to face the TV again. There's an intense rush of anger and fierce protectiveness that fills his heart. Addison is his friend, and more than that, but he still wasn't ready for the white hot fury that courses through his veins at the thought of what she had to endure.

He has seen his fair share of grisly sights, experienced them no less, and he has done his fair share of terrible things, but he abhors the mere idea of her being _touched_ and to think of Addison alone in that big house with a man who stole from her, threatened her ...

It was all he could do not to gather her in his arms right away.

"Sometimes I _hate_ my mom for leaving me alone with my dad." he changes the subject when he finds his voice again. It takes a moment for the world of colours and shapes and resolution to resolve back into recognisable forms again: Detective Cerreta and Logan caught a killer off the streets. "If she had been alive _it_ never would have happened."

She doesn't have to ask how it all began, she can see behind his eyes how it happened. She can watch the small boy scramble away from someone too big for him to fight off. An adult, a man, someone no one would suspect. A stranger with a name. She imagines Mark would fight hard, fight the losing battle until he physically couldn't. She knows he had fought with his teeth and his hands, running for the nearest object in the room as soon as he wiggles free. She could imagine him, naked and shaking, clutching a fire poker and backing himself into a corner. He wouldn't scream but he does choke for air, swinging the weapon blindly because he can't see through his tears.

"But mostly, I miss her." he says, looking expectantly towards her. "Nothing _bad_ would have happened to me if she had been alive."

It's true what they say — _love_ does trump _hate_.

It stings her heart, the injustice of it all. A horrifying crime against something so defenseless. She waits for him to speak, idly stroking his hair, intrigued by the way he flinches but doesn't pull away. "Did he tie you down?" she speaks in a half-trance "At least at first? Since you wouldn't behave."

He looks back at her, and he is tired and sad — not angry.

She doesn't get an answer and she doesn't expect one. She already knows, so she presses a hand to his chest, as if to read his heart like Braille. His sorrow is real, but something still rings falsely out of tune. She does have empathy. And perception. She sees the young boy tied down the first time someone fucked him, and he was afraid and in pain. It sends chills to her core and she merely resumes playing with his hair, curling tendrils around her fingers like a child playing cat's cradle.

He feels raw, open, and exposed. It's so new and uncharted territory that he wants to explore it further. Addison is the person to explore it with him. "I called out for _her_ ... the first time." he whispers into the silence.

_MOM! MOMMY, HELP! MOM!_

She reaches out to touch his face. It's not forceful, she's careful to not threaten him with her movements. She pictures the way Mark was once thrown on the bed and held there. She sees a small child with a knife pressed to his throat, _bite me and you die_, and he believes the threat enough to keep his jaw slack when his mouth is fucked. Wet clicking in his throat when he tries to breathe, small hands reaching for something to clutch and instead finds his wrists held and his hands ball into weak fists.

It was at ten years old when Mark Sloan wanted to survive so badly.

"You never had a chance," she whispers. Mark's eyes are bottomless and dark, without light, without hope and she covers them with a palm, shushing him to relax, to close the door to the past and void the memory off his mind.

She thinks about where this is all heading, the bloodshed that is sure to come. In this moment, the quiet and darkness of the living room exists in a time undisturbed by what's to come.

"Addison?"

“Yes?"

"Derek doesn't know ..." _about your stranger._

It's not a question but a knowing statement.

_You're the only one in the whole wide world who knows my secret. _"Derek doesn't know." she swallows heavily because telling anyone was never part of the plan.

"I thought about killing him," he tells her honestly, "I'd use my hands. More intimate that way." he yawns and snuggles against her. It sounds so sick and twisted, and if he was talking to anyone else but her, he definitely would be sent to the asylum immediately.

She pretends she hadn't heard his confession.

"Relax, Mark. Sleep." she tells him and is surprised when he actually closes his eyes.

His breathing is deep and even when she draws close enough to hear it. There's a kind of animal comfort in the restful presence of another that even she is not immune to — the soothing effect on her limbic system bidding her heart to slow and her own breathing to draw even with Mark's.

She cards his fingers through his hair and murmurs endearments into the air, like his _mommy_ used to. Some of them he can understand, some he surely won't. It hardly matters.

_"Sleep well, my sweet boy."_

The pills she's given him will surely do just that.

Mark falls into a deep and dreamless sleep in a matter of minutes. Addison keeps vigil, the analytical machinery of her mind whirring with insight and candle-bright with understanding. She draws back her arm and covers her mouth, biting the flesh from her palm as the horror of the image sink in. Her heart thunders in her chest, throat still dry and hoarse as if she had just swallowed a handful of rusty nails.

The sudden and spontaneous tears, provoked by an emotion so violent that she didn't even have a chance to hold them back.

She cries quietly until she went out of breath, until she tucks Mark in and decides to go home without waiting for Derek as planned.


	10. 2005 : the moment in question (4) — you’re not real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! Another update.
> 
> In this chapter, we’ll get to know more about how Jesse died. Also, we’ll see what Addison’s frame of mind really is.
> 
> Subject: Dubious consent and mental instability.
> 
> WARNING. E for Extremely Explicit and Dark. WARNING.  
Read with caution.

**  
Unhinged**

_ **(** **AddisonandDerekandMark)**_

* * *

**Chapter 10  
** **2005 : the moment in question (4)  
** **  
_you’re not real_ **

-:-

_"Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be know."_

_— _ _A. A. Milne_

* * *

**. . . 1998 . . .**

* * *

Addison wakes up unexpectedly, her face half enfolded by the pillow, soft cotton around her languid body. Whatever dreams she had, evaporate from her mind without a trace. Even without opening her eyes, she can tell it is early. And the bed feels unusually cold. Her hand reaches over to the other side of the large mattress at once, but instead of encountering desired warm skin, her fingers skim over a cool sheet. She frowns, a sudden crease on her forehead and slowly opens one eye. It falls on the empty space next to her, clearly responsible for her premature awakening.

Her other senses soon follow, stirring from their slumber. There is no sound disturbing the bedroom; the tranquil stillness of the brownstone is one of the things Addison enjoys the most. It reflects the peace of its residents, the comfortable silence of contended minds and joyous hearts.

A pleasant aroma of roasted coffee beans drifts into her nostrils. She finally opens her eyes fully and turns to see a glass of perfectly brewed brown liquid waiting on her bedside table. The coffee is still steaming hot, as if Derek knew exactly when she would wake up. She props herself up on her forearm and takes the glass. The smooth and crisp flavour lingers on her tongue as she takes a sip; it is made just the way she likes it, as always. Yet it does not excuse him from waking her up. Her eyes scrutinise the landscape outside the tall window. The sky remains in the dark with just a tiny smudge of orange beginning to swell behind the line of brownstones.

It is very early.

Setting the glass on the table, she lies back and begins to unfold her drowsy muscles, unwilling to move yet. Finally, Derek enters the bedroom, looking wide awake, and Addison stops mid-stretch, giving him a scorning look.

"Good morning," he tries to supress his smile, but no doubt finding her discontent endearing. His eyes slowly follow her body splayed on the bed, its curves still carelessly draped in cotton. It is a composition he has committed to memory time and time again.

"It’s too early to tell," she retorts, but her gaze mirrors his, enjoying the glimpses of his naked body, visible through his open robe.

Derek's smile cannot hide any longer, enjoying her sharp tongue as much as her wanting stare. She continues to stretch in turn, ignoring his grin. Her hand reaches over her head and her toes press forward, elongating her long legs and pulling the sheet off her body, which exposes the soft mounds of her breasts and the gentle curve of her back.

"Don’t move," Derek says at once, his eyes becoming wider. He leaves the room, only to return a minute later with his sketchbook and pencils. He takes the chair from her vanity and places it next to the window, his favourite spot due to the natural light pouring into the room and on his muse.

"Don't you have enough drawings of me?" she comments but shifts slightly to make herself more comfortable in this position.

This is one of the many talents she didn't know he has until three years into their relationship. He can cook and draw ... _what else can she ask for?_

Derek opens the sketchbook, looking almost confused as if not understanding the question.

"I dont," he responds at last as his pencil has already begun to trace her shapes on paper. “Can’t have too many.”

"I am sure you are more than capable of recreating the image of me from memory," she presses on, but the affection returns to her voice. Her skin suddenly tingles at the thought of his lips and fingertips repeatedly mapping each speck of her body with meticulous care and affection.

"Yeah, but this is so much more enjoyable," he looks up from his sketchbook, "For both of us," he adds with a roguish smile.

Addison moves gently, her cheek pressing against the softness of the pillow, her limbs lengthening along the silken fabric of the sheets. Her skin is more sensitive and her breasts feel more tender under his ardent stare, nipples straining in need of further attention. She smiles in quiet accord.

Silence falls between them as Derek continues to commit her body to paper. The gentle sound of pencil moving on sheet is soothing, his hand remains precise and his eyes study her curves with profound adoration.

The dawn sets off in full and the first rays on the morning sun slip through the window, slowly sweeping the bed and Addison’s body.

"Perfect," he comments with a delighted smile as the golden light exalts the natural glow of her skin.

"Did you wake me up only because of the light?" she counters.

"Of course, not. But it’s wonderful to know that the light loves you as much as I do," his smile grows brighter, matching the intensity of his dilated eyes.

Addison gives him a disbelieving look but smiles back nonetheless. Soft scratching of the graphite continues as the rising sun slowly traces the length of her body, still resting idly.

Soon the sound and the stillness makes her feel drowsy again.

"Derek, I think that’s enough for now," she tries to get his attention, but he seems deeply engrossed in his piece, no doubt working on the most important, finishing touches.

"Derek, I am cold."

And the pencil stops at once. He places his sketchbook aside and returns to bed in a split second.

Sliding to his side, he lies on his back, inviting her to move closer and she nestles next to him in no time, her head finding her favourite spot on his chest, one that fits her cheek perfectly. Her hand soon follows, nimble fingers stroking his chest almost absentmindedly. He covers her hand with his, wanting to ensure she is snug.

“Your skin feels warm," he says with certain hesitation, still worried, but becoming slowly aware that he has been tricked.

Addison's only reply is to sigh and press herself closer to him, her leg draped over his, her body languid once more, savouring his heat.

"Don’t move," she murmurs against his skin, making him laugh softly. “We have to be up again in a hour, so don’t move.” His fingers brush over the length of her hair and then down her spine, a feather like touch, relaxing her further.

"Never.”

* * *

_This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't happening..._

She chants to herself in her head. But then, Mark stops abruptly, tenses above her, and chills are running her from head to toe as if ice water had been thrown on her.

It's then that she's fairly certain she had said it, what she thought she had said in her head, out loud.

"The _mind plays tricks_. You know that as well as any."

* * *

**. . . 2001 . . .**

* * *

She wakes to the sound of his voice.

Gentle and soothing, she wakes to find him lying beside her, fingers in their son's hair as he rests curled against her side. He's murmuring about how glad he's home, how much Jesse has grown since he left, how beautiful he is. At that, she can't help but smile, and he must have noticed it because he pauses.

"Addison?"

"Mhm," she murmurs, voice husky with sleep. "I'm awake. You're home early."

"Yeah, well, only by a day. The conference finished early and I just couldn't wait to see you both."

"What about Mark?"

"I left him. He's on a date as we speak." he shrugs, his hand settling on his son's stomach as he shifts in his sleep. "Caught the first flight back as soon as I could."

Carefully extracting a hand from beneath her son, she rests her palm against his cheek, humming as he leans down to kiss her. It's only been over a week without him and it's eight days too long; she's missed him a lot. More than she's willing to admit.

Between them, Jesse shifts again. They pull away to see him staring up at Derek sleepily, expression perplexed at first until he grins around his pacifier, limbs failing temporarily and pacifier falling out of his mouth as he crawls over to him.

"Papa!"

Derek's face goes slack with love as Jesse snuggles into his father's side, staring down at him in wonder.

"He missed you," she says simply. "We both did."

He splays a palm against Jesse's back, presses a kiss to his hair. "Love you."

Jesse sighs in content, already slipping back into the realm of dreams, and for a moment Addison is tempted to sneak away so she can take a picture of the two of them. Her most beloved people in the world. How lost she would be without them.

But then Derek's hand rests atop hers. "Sleep, Addie."

She smiles, kissing Derek one last time before she settles beneath the covers. She keeps her hand resting on Derek's side, Jesse sandwiched between them, and she falls asleep thinking that, somewhere up there, God must be smiling.

* * *

The mind is certainly this magnificent entity, still such a mystery to this day, though, it does wonders to protect and banish monsters in lock and key. _Compartmentalising_. It does everything possible not to remember. It creates tales as old as time. It riddles too and tells jokes until you successfully forget. But all it takes is a _trigger_ to take it all back, for the film to reel back to reality and she sees and she watches and she remembers. All by herself. All alone. And the _trigger_ doesn't even have to be anything significant, it can be anything or nothing at all since it has always been there, in her head, hiding in plain sight.

She has never been a revengeful or remotely violent person. Her parents used to worry_ (jokingly) _at her seemingly lack of anger. She was a relatively ... not happy, never happy, but content child, who had everything she ever wanted, needed and much much more.

But she wouldn't say she was spoiled rotten.

She went through a vaguely petulant phase when she was around thirteen, but even then she was really more passive-aggressive and sullen more than anything. She can never say with absolute clarity, what she feels. She is so used to her brain immediately taking over, rationalising, qualifying everything. _Controlling_. She doesn't know if she feels anything really. Every feeling is filtered through layers of doubt and self-doubt.

_Am I really seeing what I am seeing? Are my thoughts my own? Is what's happening really happening?_

Sometimes, maybe unfairly, she blames her mother, who has always questioned the authenticity of her thoughts, accused her of parroting popular opinions. She may have been well-intentioned, as parents generally are, but it has resulted in her feeling she never owns the conclusions she comes to.

_"Can't you see, Bizzy?" she snarled._

_"See what, honey? All I see is my daughter throwing a tantrum at the best time possible. Just tell me what it is so I can deal with it and get back to the preparations for Thanksgiving tomorrow."_

_"Please, don't make me say it, Bizzy." she begged, fell to her knees by her mother's feet, "Please, please, Mommy. Just look me in the eyes. If you really love me, you'll see."_

_She watched as Bizzy went down to her knees in front of her, she was sure she was going to slap her for causing such a racket so late at night, the night before Thanksgiving nonetheless, but she didn't. Bizzy gently took her face in her hands and wiped away the tears. A dark look flickered over her face, there and gone between one breath and the next._

_"Okay." Her mother's voice was soft and that was that. She went to her bedroom that night and_ _ never saw Uncle Harry that Thanksgiving and any other time after that._

What her parents did or didn't do is still a mystery she'll never know and will never ask.

Perhaps they've killed him.

But it's true. It's her. Inside her. And it happened to her.

She remembers. Bizzy loves her.

* * *

**. . . 1986 . . .**

* * *

The Montgomery Mansion is exactly how she had left it at the summer's end of 1983 when she was exiled to Exeter, a boarding school up in New Hampshire.

She pauses in the foyer for a moment, trying to feel an ounce of emotion, trying to grasp onto something that isn't there. This should have been the moment when a bundle of memories come fluttering back, when nostalgia and homesickness cloud over like they do in movies because after all this is her first Thanksgiving with her family since she was forced to leave after the incident at the Debevoise's wedding_ (who, by the way, are divorced now)_. But she could only recall a fleeting afternoon at her eleventh birthday party, a miniature version of herself flouncing around this very floor.

She'd had shorter hair then, with bright red hair that bounced around her shoulders. The entire fifth-grade had been invited and while she didn't have very many friends _(just Lisa, whom she had caught with her boyfriend, Carter, at the Debevoise's wedding)_, Bizzy had thought a party like that would do wonders for her social life. She will never admit it out loud but she did kind of enjoyed the spotlight, pleased by all of the attention her birthday brought her. The room was dripping with purple, bows and silk tablecloths, dyed peonies and a five-tier cake in the dining room.

"Miss Addison," Blanca, the housekeeper, had called, shuffling her into the living room. "Ms. Bizzy say it's time for pictures."

She pouted as she was pulled away from the girls who were 'helping' her get ready _(now that she's older and wiser and not eleven, all they did was talk about Archer and how handsome and hot he was. Ew.) _Across the room, the Captain had smiled at her disgruntled expression, encouraging her to go on with a slight nod.

"Mother always —"

"I always what?" Bizzy had sighed, coming up behind her.

She froze, her face dropping as her mother immediately went to fix the bow at her back, tugging at the fabric of her dress. "And what is this? Your outfit ... it's all wrong. Addison, what have we discussed about chiffon and Mary Janes?"

She frowned, shifting away from her mother's clenching fingernails. "Blanca let me get ready on my own because it's my birthday. Don't you like it? I tried to copy the models from your magazines, and …"

"Well," Bizzy sighed, disappointment colouring her features that had her heart racing. "You copied them wrong. And this —" she yanked on the thin orange headband from Addison's hair and she yelped, trying to reach for it before her mother cast it to the side. "— does not match with that dress and makes it look like you've got no hairline. Blanca, dear, take Addison back into her room and help her change into something more tasteful. Less tacky."

Blanca had given her a sympathetic pat as they shuffled back up to her room, putting a simple blue dress on her. They sat at the vanity as Blanca pinned her hair up while she tried her hardest to keep the hurt from her expression, the tears at bay.

_There's no crying when there are guests. There's no crying when there are guests. There's no crying when there are guests._

"Miss Addison," Blanca had tried, spinning her in her seat. "Your mother just want you to look perfect for your party. She care about you very much." Addison nodded, avoiding the maid's eyes as she left the room, heading back downstairs.

Bizzy didn't care about her, she cared about the party and what the other moms would say and think about their family.

The foyer was empty when she went back down, and she heard a fit of laughter from the sitting room. She frowned as she poked her head in, gasping when she saw her guests had all lined up for pictures without her already.

"Darling, you need to wait for Addison," the Captain had demanded, trying to take the camera from her. "It's her birthday."

"Nonsense," Bizzy had hissed, yanking the camera back. "She'll be down in a minute. I just want to get a few shots of these two." She pointed at _Roger and Lisa_, who looked like a pair straight out of a GAP commercial. "They're absolutely stunning."

She could take it no longer and she fled the room, curling up at the foot of the grand staircase. Bizzy had always liked Lisa better than her. Sometimes she thinks Bizzy wished Lisa was her daughter instead.

Her head sank into her hands, tears staining the lap of her dress. She was so lost in her sobbing that she did not hear the footsteps coming up beside her. She had only just felt a hand tap her shoulder, startling her and she immediately wiped the tears from her cheeks as she glanced up at the dark-haired boy in front of her.

"You alright, Addison?" Carter had asked, adjusting the small bowtie around his neck. "You're missing your party."

"It's not my party," she murmured as he sank down beside her. They sat in silence for a moment, Addison steadying her breath and Carter watching her.

"You shouldn't cry," Carter finally shrugged.

"I wasn't crying," she said, wiping the last of the dampness from her cheeks.

"Okay," he mused. "You weren't crying." He tried to make light of the situation, but the frown remained on her face. "Do you want your present?"

At that, she perked up. "A present?" He nodded and placed the box in her lap. She bit her lip as she lifted the lid, revealing a signed autograph of her idol, Audrey Hepburn, with the words _"Happy Birthday, Addison"_. She gasped, dropping the box away to trace the glossy letters with the tips of her fingers. "Carter, I don't know what to say ..." she frowned, glancing at him. "How? Did you really meet her?"

"No. But I know people."

(And it was true. He'd told her later when they were dating that he had an aunt who lived two houses down from Audrey Hepburn herself.)

"But how did you know?" she asked.

"You make us watch her movies every time we come over," he huffed, disapproving. "It wasn't hard to guess." He couldn't help but smile as she excitedly slid the picture back into the box.

"I love it, Carter." she grinned. "It's perfect."

She sat upon the step, poised to give him a chaste hug. Carter tensed in preparation, his arms raising as she leaned over. But then, a voice broke their moment; Lisa and Roger were standing in the hallway, smiling at her with a toothy knowing grin, telling her to come and take pictures inside. Addison immediately jumped up, her cheeks heating up. But before she followed Lisa back into the sitting room, she turned back to Carter.

"Thank you," she had chirped.

"You're welcome." he paused, eyes raking over her tiny form. "I liked your first dress, by the way. Purple suits you."

Addison had smiled then, giving him a little twirl before tilting her chin up. "I picked it out myself."

**xxx**

"Oh, Miss Addison!"

The voice of her housekeeper cut through the surprisingly clear as yesterday memories. Blanca now comes barreling towards her, pulling her into an impossibly tight hug, exclaiming her happiness to see her after all these years in Spanish. She hasn't been home since she was sixteen and she feels something akin to regret coming back here. As she loosely wrapped her arms around Blanca, the memory slipped away from her.

Addison eyes the staircase, glancing at the bottom step where she'd cried, and she thought of the boy who had saved her. She thought of that boy who was the cause of her going to Exeter and losing her mother's trust and friends. Years have passed, Carter had knocked Lisa up with a third kid on the way, but the answer is somehow still the same.

Bizzy _was_ right.

Bizzy _is_ always right.

"Hello, Blanca," she says kindly, giving the woman a light squeeze before pulling away. "You're still here, huh?" she jokes and they both share a laugh as she glances around, listening for her mother's ever-present voice barking into the telephone, and even for the Captain's murmuring and hushed curses as he pours himself another finger of whiskey. But the house was silent, completely desolate and empty with housekeeping, which is unusual since it's Thanksgiving. "Is Bizzy out?"

The housekeeper clasps her hands behind her back, looking nervously at her. "Addison ... Ms. Bizzy is still in Hong Kong with your father."

"She's …" she trails off, holding her breath. "Did you not tell her I was coming today? God, Blanca."

"Miss Addison, I did tell her," Blanca murmurs, taking her bags and helping her up the stairs. "She say that Thankgiving is too short to fly back from business trip. She and your father will stay in Hong Kong for the break." The words deafened her for a moment, sending her into a fit of paralysing shock.

She sits on her old bed, clutching at the sheets as Blanca goes on, fixing the rest of her things. "Miss Bizzy say to call your cousin and have Thanksgiving at their house."

"You're kidding, right." her voice sounds too hoarse, too affected by this predicament, by Bizzy.

"She say she is sorry —"

_No. She did not._

"Sorry?" Addison echoes, tears stinging her eyes. She blinks them away, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. "It's not your fault Blanca. It's mine. I don't even know why I'm so surprised. Or why I even came back."

She feels a rush of panic, the control she had carefully wrapped around her grasp is slipping as if it were sand through her fragile fingers. The feeling rises to her throat, and she groans, gripping her own knees as she leans forward. Blanca goes to help her, concerned, but she waves her away, demanding that she fix her a cup of tea downstairs.

The minute her housekeeper is out of sight, she grabs for the box of chocolates and pastries she'd just bought for her parents at a patisserie before coming up here. She shoves one after the other into her mouth, tasting nothing as she swallows it all down. She doesn't cry or feel guilty _(yet) _because this is all she has now and when the urge comes, the last piece of eclair in her mouth and down her throat, she leaps up to run for the bathroom. But she knocks over her bag in the process that sends her books flying all over the floor. Her hand dropped from her mouth as her eyes caught the stunning picture of Audrey on the cover of the book Savvy had gifted her. She turns to the bathroom, but then she goes back, picking up the novel from the floor. She traces the letters of the title — _How to Be Lovely._

Audrey Hepburn would never stick her fingers down her throat. She would never wretch out her problems. She set the book down, sitting back at the edge of her bed as the food settles in her stomach.

She thinks of her roommate, Savvy.

_You're not going to do it._

She exhales, closing her eyes.

_I'm not going to let you do it._

She clutches at her stomach.

She smiles as Blanca brings in her tea, already distracting her with chatter about her life in college.

_Just forget everything else, Addie._

* * *

Her heart pounds in her chest. He was good. He was so very good at what he does. Still, she hesitates. From his kneeling position on _their_ bed, he holds out a hand to her.

_It would be so much easier to just give in, wouldn't it?_

Her hand moves towards his as she rises from the chaise. To accept him and her situation would mean no more running, no more wondering. Giving him what he wanted would be so easy, so simple and ... that's it.

She'd be able to breathe again.

She reaches the edge of the bed, hand extended like she is reaching for a spindle when suddenly, she sees him smiling. Not his interested smirk nor his observing grin, but one that spells out her _defeat_.

Addison snatches her hand away just as their hands touch.

Her life would never be her own again. He would see to that. He would twist her into all manner of knots for his perverse enjoyment. This has always been the end game for her, to be subjugated, to be bonded, moulded into a hell of her own making-she had allowed herself to be seduced by the man and the monster, and she accepted responsibility for that. It fell to her to hold the demon in check, as best as she could, for as long as she was able.

She is the consort of the Devil himself. If there is a God, may He have mercy on her miserable soul.

  


* * *

**. . . 2003 . . .**

* * *

Wisps of her hair escape from her bun, soft and silky curls brushing against her cheeks in the cold winter breeze.

Addison stands apart from the crowd, eyes closing as she wraps her arms around herself in an attempt to hold herself together. It _seems_ like it's working. Fingers clutching onto the last few strands of thread that threaten to rip at the seams.

If she focuses hard enough, though, she can forget the cold wind sending shivers down her body, the greyness of the sky, the all-black crowds.

If she focuses hard enough, she can change the ending.

She feels a finger on her cheek, a soft touch tucking one of her curls behind her ears. She startles, looking around to discover that everyone from the funeral has gone. It's over. Her baby is ... _gone_. Jesse isn't ever coming back. Never again will she hear his twinkling laughter; never again will she watch the concentration on his face when he coloured between the lines; never again will she come home from a long day at work to her excited and playful baby.

It still doesn't feel real. She keeps expecting to feel the little hand of her son's slipping into her own, to demand a bedtime story from both of them.

The only thing that would make it feel real is, if she were to reach inside, she's not quite too sure she'd find a heart.

"What do we do now?" she murmurs.

"I don't know," he answers her quietly.

"Will —" she stammers, her husband's eyes are void, unfamiliar — but he can't, he can't possibly be blaming her, "Will we survive this?"

“I don’t know.”

She stands beside their son's grave in the violent wind, waiting for the ground to swallow her whole.

* * *

They do make it to the bed eventually. It takes a few tries but they do and it's a lot warmer up here, comfortable even without clothes on. She still has goosebumps creeping up her arms, but it has more to do with the way Mark is looking at her than anything else, hungry and admiring.

"Would you take a leap of faith for me?" he asks.

"A what?"

"A leap of faith. Trust me. Like I trust you."

Addison shakes her head - left, right. An intelligible gesture to the real answer of his earlier question. She feels proud of it.

He pulls her legs apart then, spreads her wide, which sets a tangle of embarrassment blooming in her stomach. He stares, and she squawks at the indignity of it, halfway through saying_ Mark, what the hell_, when he pushes his nose between her and breathes deep. A warm, wet tongue licks at her in a long, slow stripe, obviously more for his own enjoyment than hers.

She wants to close her legs but Mark holds them open.

It's _a _bedroom, but not _their_ bedroom. They don't have anything that's _theirs _in this house, or anywhere else for that matter. _Theirs_. But this is the bedroom she shares with her husband.

_Derek._

She could have led them to the guest bedroom.

_But where's the excitement in that?_

It's awful, really. It's taboo. It really is another level of diabolical. Especially because it's twisting something in her chest, stirs something dark, _fucking_ sick and full of malice. She spares a glance at _Derek_, who's watching them with sightless eyes from the corner of the room, head bent back at an awful angle, his still-beating heart wrapped in cold hands.

Derek's lip twitches. "_Alcoholism_ is such a common, inelegant form of self-destruction. It doesn't suit you."

She drags Mark closer and covers his mouth with her own. He meets her with teeth and tongue, and she groans into his mouth, licking her way in and pressing closer when Mark grips her arms bruisingly tight. It's less a kiss and more trying to swallow each other whole.

She spares a glance at _Derek_ at the corner of the room, as she continues kissing Mark, still watching them with his hollowed-out eyes, mouth set in a hard, flat line.

"Do you object to the inelegance or the self-destruction? God forbid I don't leave behind a beautiful, well-preserved corpse."

"Neither, actually. The secrecy and the shame it suggests, I do object to those."

"You don't want me to stop," she translates as _Derek's_ motives clarify, becoming as solid and clear as daylight. "Or you do, but that's incidental. You want to watch. You want to participate."

_Derek_ smiles, and it's the devil's smile.

She arches off the bed at the first touch of a warm, wet tongue against her. It's all insistent heat and slick pressure, and a garbled yell falls from her mouth. She reaches down instinctively, gets her fingers in Mark's hair, tries to push him away even as his fingers tighten and try to hold her there.

"Mark, fuck."

He hooks his arms around her thighs and drags her closer. When she finds the strength to open her eyes, finally - when she looks up - _Derek_ is gone. If there was an answer, it's lost to the wet lapping of skin on skin. The sound is squelching and obscene, and she doesn't know if she's ever been this turned on in her entire life. She digs her heels into Mark's back and holds on while he licks her until she feels sloppy and loose and swollen while he forces his tongue into her in a way that makes her writhe and moan.

"Addie," he says, gentle. "Look at me."

She does, and the eye contact is searing. Mark holds her gaze and there's an intrusion then, the blunt press of fingers against her, dipping in as he licks around them to ease them inside. A press in and in, a stretch that burns as Mark pushes his way deeper. Her body clenches, but Mark stays put. Shoves his way into her until she thinks she might scream. She groans as he rubs against something that lights her nerves on fire.

"Stop," she says. "Don't," while her hips find a stuttering rhythm, pressing back into his fingers out of sync with his measured, even thrusts.

"You're okay," he murmurs into her skin, pressing kisses along her hip. "It's okay. It's okay. Just relax."

He fucks her with his fingers and tongue until she is panting and gasping, begging _please, please, please, _and she doesn't know what for. Mark pulls out at last, leaving her stretched and aching - she can't tell if the feeling is relief or loss.

There's an inexorable press in, something wide and heavy breaching her, cracking her open. She clutches Mark's shoulders and pants. Someone makes a high, tight noise.

"Shh," he gentles her. He pets her hair, strokes her face. "It's okay. Everything is fine."

He presses in and in, and it's too big and too much and, "Please," Addison says, broken. "Mark."

He gives her no time to adjust, just drives into her hard and relentless, knocking the wind from her until she's clinging and gasping. She wants it, and she doesn't. She wants it like dying, like stepping in front of an oncoming train, ruined and damned and no one to save her.

_How is dying supposed to feel?_

Like this. _Yes_. Just like this.

"Stop," she gasps, mostly just to see if Mark will. "Stop, stop. You're hurting me."

She doesn't actually know if it's hurting - it might be, could be pleasure or pain. She can't tell the difference through the anaesthetic of alcohol. It's not hard to imagine that it does, though. Not hard to convince some relevant part of her brain that it hurts so terribly, to let her voice go breathy and strained. It's frightfully easy to let herself cry, to tap into the deep well of betrayal that runs like groundwater between them and let it wash over her until she cracks.

She chants it like a litany, like praying the rosary as she twists and moans beneath him. _Stop. Stop, stop, stop._

"Stop," she says. Then, "Mark, please. It hurts."

It occurs to her that she's never actually asked Mark to stop anything before. She's never begged him not to hurt her, not even when his hurt was thinly disguised as flattery. Some part of her instinctively bends toward whatever he gives her. It must occur to Mark in the same instant because he stops moving in her. His mobile face goes blank, then concerned. And she knows then that she's got him as surely as he has her. Her face twists into a cruel grin because _oh_, she's tamed a monster.

It's — this is terribly _terribly_ funny.

Mark narrows his eyes and repays her with a particularly vicious thrust that knocks her head against the wall. She can't tell if that hurts either, and she laughs and laughs, pained tears still streaming down her cheeks. Mark fucks her through it, yanking her down the bed so her head doesn't clatter into the drywall again, shutting her up with the press of a finger against the place where their bodies are joined.

"Oh fuck, oh Mark." Her eyes slam shut of their own accord at the burning stretch of it when Mark slides his finger in on the next thrust. She moans as he keeps it there, filling her up as he rocks their bodies together. Her limbs still aren't quite willing to obey her - there's a long delay between thought and action, so she lies there and takes it. Mark doesn't seem to mind. His expression is fierce and bright when she manages to pry her eyes open long enough to see it.

Her cheeks are still wet. Her breath hitches like a reminder, and her body decides it would really like to keep crying. Her mind is useless, thoughts scattering like bubbles, like marbles. She can't quite remember why she shouldn't.

Mark leans forward to press a sweet kiss against her lips, and she sobs.

"Addie," he says, pulling back. Stopping now - stopping for real. He pulls out of her body, and the loss feels like being gutted all over again. The finality of it feels the same.

"Don't stop," she slurs. "Please," she says, and she means it. It's easier to beg now that she's got the knack of it, like a cork that's been undone. "Please, don't stop."

Her eyes aren't closed because Mark peels them open with clinical efficiency, peering at her pupils and counting the pulse in one numb wrist. He is just as naked as he was a second ago, but there's a palpable shift. It reminds her of the early days of their acquaintance when Mark was polite but remote. Clad in his leather jacket and always impeccably sharp. Untouchable. And she doesn't know why she _hated_ him then. Maybe it was a farce for something much deeper. She never felt the urge to muss him up, to break him and seep into the cracks in his skin then, but she does now. Being shut out is worse than being hurt.

She is laid out flat on her back, but she pushes herself to her elbows, struggles her way upright. Everything is swimming. She topples forward, tries again. Finds her way into Mark's lap crawling and dizzy.

"Please," she croons into his ear. She finds Mark's mouth and kisses him, messy and inexpert. Too much tongue, teeth sliding and clacking together. "Mark, please." She wraps her hand around him, still hard and straining. Still, something that shouldn't be hers. "Mark, fuck me."

His eyes slide shut. She wonders what _hell_ looks like to him. Wonders if it looks like this.

He disentangles her hands from his body and pushes her off his lap and back onto the bed, gentle but firm. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Gentleness feels like a slap to the face.

"Oh, fuck you," she hisses. "This is what _you_ wanted, isn't it? _You_ wanted to see me sloppy and drunk. This is your idea, and now you won't finish it? That's the line you're not willing to cross?"

It's not wrong that there should be lines between them, any lines that might hold them apart. A flaw in an otherwise orderly universe. She draws lines in the sand, and Mark sweeps them away. That's who they are. That's the story they make.

"This may have been a mistake," he says softly, and it pulls her up short.

It's all poisoned, all of it. The love, the affection. The bleeding, bitter care that turned her into something other than what she was. It's in her now, and she'll never get it out.

She studies Mark's face, looking for truth there - something recognisable, a crack to widen and let herself in. It's there at the bottom. Wounded, injured love, a vein of it running deep.

"I hurt you, didn't I?" she asks. Past and present. Future too. She touches Mark's face, wondering.

"No worse than I hurt you."

It's adjacent to forgiveness; it's as close as they come. If they never forgive each other, they'll never be free.

No one here wants to be free.

"Let me make it hurt worse. You'll like it, I promise."

She finds her way to her hands and knees, crawls her way over to where Mark is sitting, watching her like she might bite like he's looking for solace in a drawer full of knives. She wants to take this pretty thing apart and watch it shatter, thinks of fragile china and time.

She plants a hand on his chest and pushes. Mark bends so easily, falls onto his back. His eyes are wary and helpless when he looks up at her, and she thinks she's never seen anything so beautiful. "I want to remember you like this."

She sees the _no_ on his face, sees it lurking behind his eyes and on the tip of his tongue, so she kisses it away. She kisses Mark senseless until he's dazed and gasping. Until he changes the _no_ into something else.

Then, she takes him in a clumsy hand and lines it up, sinks down onto it with a hiss - it still hurts. It hurts both of them. Mark steadies her with hands on her hips, and she rocks against him, messy. _Inelegant_.

He flips her onto her back, and she sighs beneath him.

She gasps when he fixes his mouth to her throat and sucks, her eyes flies open then, to _Derek_ staring at her like she's fascinating, which is less than comforting with the lack of eyes, only the deep concave of his eye sockets is what she sees.

"You know why I drink. You just wanted a different answer. A different ending to the story."

"What?" Mark asks, enraptured, gone, confused.

She wants to be awful, awful in a way she'd surely regret, to shatter the teacup and whisper filth into his ear, and maybe Mark can tell. Maybe that's why Mark doesn't move. Doesn't smile, doesn't shrug, doesn't laugh.

She lets it loll on her shoulder, looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes, seeing herself the way Mark sees her - flushed cheeks, laboured breathing, legs splayed haphazardly. Through the whiskey-haze, she sees something she hadn't seen before, or maybe hadn't let herself see.

"The same reason anyone drinks. To forget."

She sees the moment Mark understands. The moment it hurts. A minute gesture that brings everything into vivid focus. Mark tries to twist away, but she holds him down, wraps her thighs around his hips and holds. She looks into his eyes and drinks down the suffering there, press kisses to his fluttering lids. She shushes and gentles him like he did her before.

She rips the cut deeper.

"I'm with you till we're dead, but I can't fucking stand you. You're the only thing I have."

Mark clings to her, and she rocks her hips, clenches her muscles and makes him moan. There's no escape for either of them. She is hurting him - and she is crying with the pain of it, scores along her back and ribs and heart, but she is absolutely not sorry. She's never been less sorry for anything in her life. She just hurts along with Mark, and that's good and right. Everything is exactly as it should be.

"I can't love you without hating one of us, but I do. I love you."

"If you really love me, you have to _let me go_."

"What?"

"I want you to be happy, Addison. I do. You won't ever be if you don't ... _let me go. Let me go_."

She can see it.

Everything goes instantly cold and she blinks. She’s scared because he’s now gone.

_Not again._

Suddenly, she's not sweating into the too-soft mattress in _their_ brownstone. Now, it's dark and she's back in _Rye_, on the floor of the kitchen she had seen every day for months. The hardwood is cool beneath her skin, and everything is sticky and copper with blood. The walls are dripping, dipped in blood that runs black in the moonlight. It's so thick she can taste it. It gets in her eyes, in her nose and mouth until she drowns, sputtering in it.

She wails and wails, screams and chokes. Her head doesn't get any less bloody by the night. They're always all the same, as a matching teacup set. Variations on a theme. But it's always the park, the car, the loud irate screeching of tyres, the crushing of tiny bones and the trail of blood-stained skids marks trailing away.

It's always her and Mark. Sometimes Derek shows up. Sometimes Jesse. Bizzy, too, and Uncle Harry. Sometimes people she's never seen before. The people in her head always comes out to say _hi_, too.

The blood is black as anything in the moonlight, and when it drenches her, she feels nauseated. The horror of seeing her son _gutted_ isn't what makes her scream. Not his cold skin or _lifeless_ eyes, not the sound his body makes when the car drops him on the ground like a broken toy.

It's his eyes that does it. He has his father's eyes. Derek's ocean blue eyes.

_Sightless. Hollowed-out concaves. _She cannot bare to look at them.

Sensation blurs; surety of time, place, and body blurs. There's a hand and a mouth, a sigh and a sob. A noise that sounds like death, and she feels it bloom hot and wet inside her. Something feels knife-bright and liquid-sharp. There's salt in her mouth, and it might be blood or it might be tears, or it might be come.

It might be all three.

Everything is wonderful, which is to say everything is terrible, and then she screams and she doesn't stop screaming until she blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is real and what isn’t?  
Let me know what you think!


	11. 2003 : a look into the past — baby, this is all for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To confirm some of your speculations:
> 
> -Yes, Addison is kooky in the head. I'd say she's become mentally unstable with all that’s happened. Towards the end of the previous chapter, even Addison can't distinguish from reality or what's in her head. All this time she thought she was in the brownstone with Mark but she actually wasn’t; she was alone.  
-Addison did cheat on Derek with Mark but on this particular time, she’s having an ‘episode’ so that’s why she’s talking to and seeing Derek with his sightless, hallowed-out eyes, when they’re doing it. She has a fragile grip on reality.
> 
> -Yes, Jesse died because of a car accident. And that’s all we know for now.
> 
> -Yes, they’re not living in the brownstone.
> 
> -Yes, Mark tells Addison to let him go. You can interpret that how ever you want in these two ways — he left NYC or he passed away.
> 
> In conclusion, most of what happened between Addison and Mark from Ch. 2-10 has been in Addison’s head. Not all of it, though.  
The ‘past’ scenes throughout Ch. 2-10 and the ‘a look into past’ chapters did happen.
> 
> In the chapters with ‘2005’ in them, the night when Derek walked in on them, some elements did happen and some didn’t. It’s for you all to decide.
> 
> However, the sex scene with Mark at the end of Ch. 10 was all in Addison’s head.

**Unhinged  
**

_ **(AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 11**

**2003 : a look into the past**

_ **baby, this is all for you**_

* * *

The large brim of the sun hat hides the sparks in the her eyes, but a soft smile adorning her lips betrays her delight.

Sitting in the shadow of a white umbrella, on the far side of the secluded beach, safely out of reach on the frisky waves, Addison watches as two figures splash happily amongst the azure sea waters. The blue of the sea is framed by the black grains of the sand on the shore, light and dark coming together in a flawless weave, a fitting distinction for its current occupants.

Addison's hand rests on the open book, finger marking the last paragraph, but it is just a decorous gesture; she has barely read one sentence, the sight in front of her making for a much more engrossing distraction. One that makes her heart leap in unexpected ways.

The corners of her mouth turns up higher as she sees her son beginning to proudly display his swimming skills for his father who remains close to him, both admiring and keeping a watchful eye on him, yet still sending spatters of water in his direction. Addison smirks, wondering who the actual child is there.

_Both_.

The sun glares high above them, turning the surface of the water into glimmering jewels that twinkle in tempo with Jesse's laughter, ringing loud enough for Addison to hear, making her heart swell anew.

After a while, Jesse's laps change direction and he advances towards the shore. Once the water is shallow enough, he stands up and starts taking big steps, eager in his new pursuit, the rising waves being no match for the little boy's energy. He steps out of the water and does not stop, quite the contrary, now that he is on dry land, he launches into a sprint, sand sticking to his wet feet with the remaining grains bursting in the air behind her. He reaches Addison's lounging chair in no time and stops abruptly, tiny hands trying to brush away the wet hair sticking to his face while he directs a big smile at her.

"Did you enjoy the swim, baby?" Addison asks, hand abandoning the book and immediately reaching for a towel as she shifts in her spot to dry her son, ignoring the specks of water and sand marking her clean oasis.

"Yup, I did," he nods eagerly, patiently standing while Addison whisks away the remaining drops of moisture from his skin, embracing him firmly with the towel.

Jesse's amazement at his first encounter with the open sea was a thing to behold, and it still has not lost its charms on her.

"I‘m glad," Addison smiles gently at him, now discarding the towel and taking the bottle of sunscreen lotion, setting to apply a fresh layer on her son's skin.

She might be scorning Derek's over-protectiveness at times, but she finds herself looking out for their son just as fiercely. And sunburn is not a matter to be taken lightly.

"I showed Papa the swimming styles we practised," Jesse chirps happily as Addison's hands work their way over his exposed skin.

"Really? That's wonderful. And I'm sure he was eager to learn from you," Addison encourages her son, fingers reaching around his tiny nose, making sure no spot remains without sun-cover.

"He still needs to work on his dog paddle," scrunching his nose, Jesse concludes matter-of-factly, making Addison smile anew.

"I'm sure Papa will improve under your instruction," having finished her task, Addison's finger now strokes Jesse's nose playfully, making him laugh again.

She sets the bottle aside, looking at her son with affection.

"You should come swim with us, Mama," Jesse says with fresh enthusiasm, hand reaching for Addison's, all ready to pull her away from her seat.

"Oh, sweetie. I'm quite comfortable sitting over here and watching you," Addison responds, her tone gentle, not wanting to sound too harsh in her rejection.

"But I miss you there," Jesse's gaze turns crestfallen, his grip not faltering, "And I'm sure Papa misses you too."

Addison glances in the direction of the sea, just as Derek emerges from the water and steps onto the beach in a very Hollywood-like fashion, a rather fortunate coincidence. He pauses to brush his hair back, head tilting towards the sky, enjoying the warmth. And giving Addison an excellent view of his body, clad in nothing but a pair of swimming shorts, taut chest glistening under the sun. A flawless performance for a one-woman audience he knows is watching intensely.

Oh, she’s sure _he_ misses her.

"You like the way Papa looks," Jesse states all the sudden, making Addison's gaze turn to him once more, his blue eyes, just like his dad’s, shines with bright curiosity as he scrutinises her reactions.

It amazes her still, the ever-growing brilliance of their son and his keen perception_ (a little too perceptive at times, she must add)_, going well beyond his age.

"I do," Addison responds truthfully, fingers reaching to sweep the few unruly strands of hair behind his ear.

She knows Derek is watching them from a distance, relinquishing any responsibility for the plan of luring Addison into the water and probably enjoying not being on the receiving end of Jesse's persuasive skills for once.

"And he likes the way you look too," Jesse carries on in the same certain manner.

"He does?" Addison asks, hiding an amused smile behind a press of her lips while Derek's influence, they must have planned this together, slips into the open.

"Of course, he always does. You're very pretty, Mama," Jesse frowns at her lapse of common sense.

It is all very obvious as far as he is concerned.

"You can watch him while we swim," he pronounces, treating the matter as a foregone conclusion and gently pulling at Addison's arm.

Having no counterarguments to these excellent points, Addison takes off her hat and allows her son to guide her from the cover of the umbrella and onto the heat of the open air. The sand is hot under her feet, but her son's decisive stride leads them to the cool shallows of the seashore in no time. Derek does not wait for them, but returns to the water, as if paving a safe path for them to follow.

Having reached their destination, Jesse lets go of her hand and marches into the sea with obvious relish, having clearly taken after her with her love for the water. She smiles and follows him, walking much slower, adjusting to the sudden burst of cold around her, but still keeping up with the little boy's much smaller steps.

Soon the sea level becomes too deep for Jesse to walk and he begins to swim, arms and legs moving with practised effortlessness.

The water still only reaching to his waist, Addison watches him with pride, all the hours they had spent in the pool together bearing bountiful fruit. Yet her gaze remains vigilant, the sea being much more temperamental than the controlled space of the swimming pool.

"He’s quite good," Derek appears at her side at last, expected sparks of delight dancing in his eyes.

"He's a natural," she concurs, her voice brimming with emotions, ones that still take her by surprise. But she no longer feels like she is standing outside her own self and merely looking in, now she embraces the feelings and dives into their unsettled depths.

"It's in her blood after all," Derek proclaims with his usual solemnity, each speck of Addison manifesting itself in their son filling him with utmost exaltation. And making Addison's emotions swirl deeper in turn.

She exhales slowly, settling her heart and its rapid beat.

"An instructor told me you need improvement," she says, tilting her head slightly and giving him a brief glance of reprimand before turning her gaze back to their son.

"I might need a few private lessons," he steps closer to Addison, hand reaching to rest on her buttock and fondling it eagerly, the gesture and all its implications concealed by surface of the water.

Her eyes light up with a fresh scold at this poorly timed expression of desire, but his hand stays firmly in place. Addison says nothing, knowing well that her body will betray her, already leaning into his caress. Derek's hand obediently moves to the other, not wanting to leave any part of her behind without affection, than wraps around her waist, ready to pull her into his arms.

"Later," she finally speaks then disentangles herself from his hold in one smooth motion and dives into a swim despite the shallow water, moving in the direction of their son.

Jesse beams in delight at his mother joining him, tiny head turning to make sure his mother follows his exact course. Addison's head turns as well, to glimpse at Derek, still standing in the same spot and staring at them both with exaltation as if they were two sirens tempting with their glamour.

A sudden frivolous urge to break his daydream enters Addison's mind; she stops mid-stroke, then turns back, her hands swooping through the water and sending a giant splash in his direction, drenching him instantly. Blinking the drops away, Derek's adoring expression turns into genuine startle while Jesse bursts into laughter, delighted with his mother's playfulness. Not waiting for Derek to retaliate, she resumes her strokes and catches up with their son.

"Let's get Papa a chance to practice his swimming, shall we?" she urges him on.

"Yes!" Jesse exclaims happily, his legs kicking with fresh fervour as he moves forward alongside his mother.

They quickly gain momentum, leaving the now grinning Derek nothing but to follow them.

**  
X X X**

The sun already begins its descend beyond the horizon, long shadows now colouring the lines of the water a darker shade of blue, when they finally make their way back to their beach house.

The water has finally managed to get the best of Jesse, all his energy spent and needing to be recharged; he now rests safely in Derek's embrace, his head pressed against his shoulder, arm flung over the side of his arm, in deep oblivion of sleep.

The heat releases its hold on the air, allowing fresh breeze to flow smoothly, caressing Addison's skin with gentle brushes. And the wind is not alone in its touches. Derek's other arm sneaks around her waist and he pulls her closer as they walk. She rests her hand on his back, sighing softly, enjoying the moment of quiet tenderness.

Suddenly, the hand moves from her waist to cup her behind in the same manner he did before. Addison's eyes spring open in a sharp gaze as she lightly slaps him on the arm.

"Aren't you tired?" she says with amusement, looking at him from under her hat, as his hand remains securely on the curve of her body, shifting together with her every step.

"Never," he proclaims with a gleam in his eyes, adjusting the placement of his hand ever so slightly.

Addison raises an eyebrow; she still remembers the time when even Derek's exceptional stamina was rendered obsolete by the tiny being they have created together.

But now his eyes persist in their eagerness, the same brilliant spark she knows so well, never dulled through the passing of years. Her body responds instinctively, the remaining whit of energy lit up within her and soon burning with the same fervour. She tilts her head up in a silent invitation and Derek leans forward to press a gentle kiss on her lips, like a seal of agreement.

With their son deeply asleep, the evening is theirs to enjoy.

Her hand reaches out to stroke their son's hair, then settles itself on Derek's back once more. Smiling, Addison licks her lips, savouring the promise of more caresses to come. The salt from Derek's skin lingers on hers, but she can only discern the sweetness of the affection.


	12. 2006 : present : ever been surprised?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally hear from Derek.

**Unhinged**

_ **(****AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**2006 : present**

** _ever been surprised?_ **

_"_ _We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then."_

—_T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party_

* * *

In another world, Derek and Addison meet while they're both on their last year of residency. With maturity comes mutual understanding and by then, they'll both want the same things in life. Addison tricks Derek into loving her. Derek does the same to Addison. Love and then, marriage. A son, twin daughters. A dog. A house with a white picket fence and rose bushes.

A happy ending, eventually.

In this world, though, Derek is stabbed in the heart and back a little differently. The universe tries to repeat itself, always, a symphony of perfect order that keeps time by the swirling of the cosmos. It does pretty well, all things considered — it's difficult to play out the same scenarios as exact replicas through dimensions across space and time. But sometimes things wobble, become misaligned, get thrown out of whack. Sometimes what was supposed to be a survivable test from God becomes less so.

Because here, they met when they were both in medical school. They got married in their first year of residency. Had a son after five years of finally tying the knot. And lost him in that same amount of time. They shut down and grew further apart, but were still lost without each other. They didn't try for another because Derek can't help but feel as though he'd be _replacing_ Jesse in doing so. Addison became increasingly sick in the mind and she slept with Mark to cement that diagnosis. Mark left for LA without saying _goodbye. _Addison lost herself some more and Derek hoped of gathering back the pieces.

_Dissociation and delusion_, that's what they said. Or rather, her mind would go back to a time that happened and he'd let her, he'd play along with her. Her grip on reality is still tenuous — splintered and fractal, but glorious in its disarray. So they moved to Rye near a lake to get away from the stresses of city life and curious eyes that says _"she's_ _crazy"_ when Derek insists she really isn't.

_Jesse died._ _Our son died. __Give her a break. Please._

In just three and a half short years, Derek had lost his son, who was his _world_, his wife, who was his _heart_, and his best friend, who was his _brother_.

Derek stays with Addison even through all that she's done to him because he can't imagine a world without her.

It's a world without sight.

* * *

Bad things happen and God doesn't intervene.

Addison sleeps with Mark, Mark sleeps with Addison and he runs away.

_"Derek! Derek, wait! It's not what you think!"_

Speculate however you want about the classic problem of evil, but the standing matter of fact is that if there is a God he doesn't protect anyone from the horrors of reality.

Because when an innocent little boy is killed, God doesn't do anything, just watch down from where he sits on his throne. But the people who did the crimes get to live their lives again after serving the bare minimum _(two years because of overcrowding.)_

_Why doesn't Jesse get to live? Why did they deserve a second chance and he didn't?_

He was five years old. He was the sweetest, the most beautiful boy, the kindest and most thoughtful boy in the whole wide world.

_Doesn't he deserve a life too?_

_He deserves to be with us. We're his parents._

There is the silence that's manmade — the clattering whir of the air conditioning that rattles and croaks like a stage four lung cancer patient. The soft tick-and-tock of the clock that he can't see, but can hear; it's a loud thing, seems taunting almost. _Hah_, another second in here. _Hah_, another. _A whole minute has gone by, do you feel yourself getting older?_

Derek sits in his driveway and stares outwards. His own house looks empty. As though nobody's home. He knows for a fact that Addison is. She doesn't leave the house much these days. Just sometimes when she really has to, maybe on walks with him to the beach, and twice a week for her mandatory therapy. Other than that she doesn't ever go past twenty yards of their property.

_"Why?"_

_Finally, he saw her caving. After hours of screaming at each other, after walking out on her and Mark and coming back, he knew then that what would be coming out of her mouth next was the truth, "I wanted to hook you," she said in wonder, as though it was as much of a confession to her._

_"Suffocate you as you have done to me."_

_"I didn't step out of our marriage." he said, defensively._

_"You didn't. But you were long gone before tonight. You blamed me for Jesse's death. And I blame you for tonight."_

_"Tonight? I didn't do anything wrong."_

_"Me too."_

The air is thick and empty in his car, the space behind his eyes is empty, too. Until it is not, until something shifts and prowls from the shadows, horned and fanged, and white-hot with anger like a _toro bravo_ about to charge at him.

His fingers curl around the steering wheel until his knuckles turn bone-white, his nostrils flare; the only giveaway.

"_Stop."_

_"Derek, please. Please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It didn't mean anything."_

_"Our marriage meant that little to you that you would throw ten years for "it didn't mean anything"?"_

He remembers Mark's leather jacket. He remembers hearing his wife and Mark — they were loud, as though they were waiting for him, wanted him to walk in on them. He remembers Addison naked in the most intimate way. He remembers them scrambling to cover like a couple of fishes out of water and he remembers running away. He remembers coming back, talking to her. He remembers forgiving her a week later because something might have happened to her if he didn't and he knows he can't live knowing that she died because of him.

He gets fucking angry sometimes, livid at fate and circumstance for taking away his only child. For taking his wife. She's gone, too — lost. She is not the same person he married. Far from the beautiful twenty-two-year-old girl he met at the library in medical school. Sometimes he feels sorry for that girl; she didn't know it would all come to _this_.

She's still beautiful, though.

He blames that judge and God for taking everything he cherishes away from him because — _was it even necessary? _Now, all he has is his career and he doesn't even care about that anymore. He's the Chief of Surgery, youngest in the making. He had dreamed for that day all throughout medical school and now, he can't see why he had spent so many years arguing with Addison about staying late in the hospital because he had a dream.

He had a family, too.

_Why did he do that?_

It's just a title on a piece of paper and higher pay. But it's not like they needed more money.

_Dr. Derek Shepherd, M.D., Chief of Surgery_

_What is the point of dreaming when all your dreams are already shattered, when your family is broken?_

He didn't know how good he had it until it was all gone.

* * *

When Derek wakes up these days, he is always wet. Face stained with tears, t-shirt soaked in sweat, his cold, shivering body sticking to the damp, tangled sheets. Sometimes, even his boxers are wet, for different reasons which are almost equally embarrassing, but not entirely. At times, he feels like his body is trying to escape him, seeping slowly out of his pores. Other times, it feels like it's trying to drown him.

He can never remember his dreams, only it's colour; a deep crimson, mingling with the constant black, a soft blue. Blue like the colour of Jesse's eyes, the colour of Addison's. Red like the wine she used to have him drink. He drinks them because she says it pairs well with red meats. He drinks because she likes it and he doesn't mind the taste as well; he prefers scotch or good ole beer would do.

Derek always did feel a little silly holding that dainty wine glass in his hand, constantly trying to correct the way his fingers would grab it by the bulb. Addison and Mark never hesitated to take the glass by its stem, while he would make a conscious decision — resulting in just the slightest pause of his hand, betraying his insecurity. He feels that this, in a way, is representative of their relationship as a whole.

There are blood and gut ripping grief and a stabbing hunger that Derek feels a kinship to. Addison twists and turns, and sometimes kicks in the night, sleeping fitfully, and he wonders if she even knows she's doing it. If she wonders why she wakes in the morning feeling poorly rested with shadows underneath her eyes.

Derek hates watching.

Losing everything hasn't hardened him at all, hasn't blunted the sharp edges of his sympathy one bit. If anything, it's made him more keen, and so he gives in to Addison every time. He would fold his body around hers in their ghastly cold bed and wonders at the way his touch stills her shivering shoulders. Addison would never stir awake, never push, never notice that he's there holding her to his chest. But his essence eats away at her nevertheless.

And she still grows dimmer by the day.

Derek would shake his head some days, eyes wide and frightened as a child and he speaks to her as though she is awake. It's much easier to talk about the pain out when one party isn't conscious. "It's not the same when I can't _see_ you. I'm afraid. I'm scared that I'll never _see_ you again."

_"I can bear pain myself," he said softly, "but I cannot bear yours. That would take more strength than I have."_

It's like she's become a new person and he has to get to know her again.

Because he fears that Addison will be taken away from him again, not physically but, further pulled into the great black void beyond nowhere and past the point of no return where there's no _pain_, but there is no love there at all. Nothing but never-ending fields of contentment that weren't made for the likes of them.

He blinks, soot-dark eyelashes fanning against the hollow space beneath his eye. He looks at the mirror. He's gotten too thin as well. The skin papered over his orbital socket looks fine and bruised, purple-black shadows bright as a beacon.

He hasn't been sleeping.

He reckons he's forgotten how to shut off his _Goddamned_ mind. He's been worrying about his wife, life and death for too long now.

_Who will take care of her when he's gone? What if she goes first? How will he cope? What will he do?_

_What if they take a swan dive off a cliff together?_

It'd be beautiful.

All this worrying reminds him of that time they both stayed up for two whole days tending to Jesse when he had a fever.

_Jesse._

He's always dreamt of becoming a father. Modelled after his very own. And when he found out that they were expecting, he was more afraid than happy because Addison's reaction was what he had feared; he was fearful of what she would decide.

_"How far along?" he eventually asked her later that evening in the living room, his voice barely overpowering the crackling of the fire._

_"Eight weeks."_

_His gaze fixed on the fire, then. "What do you want to do?" The weight of the crucial question leaves his tongue, feeling dry and heavy._

_"For now, I only intend to _think_." She rose from her seat elegantly as if her proverbial world hadn't just been flipped upside-down._

The timing wasn't right.

It wouldn't ever be right, he thought. Not now. Not then. Not some time in between. They never really would have found the '_right time'_ to have children. Not on their own, at least _(with the assistance of wine and whiskey and a three year old condom, sure)_.

At that time, she would have never agreed if they were to discuss having children because she had just been accepted to do her neonatology fellowship in Boston and having a baby would have made things a lot more complicated.

But in the end, she had Jesse and deterred the fellowship a year and did it in New York instead.

_"I've been thinking ... we're going to have a baby."_

That night, Derek wrapped his arms around Addison in bed. She tensed but didn't pull away, and neither did he.

_"You're angry with me," he said._

_Addison sighed. "Not angry. Well, okay. Maybe angry, but not at you. Mostly I'm just …" she trailed off at a loss for words, trying to find the right ones in the dark. "I'm scared."_

_"Of our baby?"_

_"Not our baby, silly. Of everything. Of getting it wrong. My parents got a lot wrong and children learn by example. I can't help but wonder if I'll be any good at it — being a mother."_

_"Of course, you will," he told her._

_"Well, I'm an OB. I know how to deliver a baby, how to feed one, how to take care of one when it's ill, but that's not being a mother. I have nothing really to guide me. Bizzy wasn't much of a mother."_

_"What you don't know, you'll learn. We'll learn together."_

_"I love you, Derek."_

He looks down at his hands. He does not know if their marriage would have survived if she had decided otherwise. He had a friend in college, his girlfriend's best friend, a girl named Claire. She had a scumbag boyfriend who got her pregnant and bullied her into having an abortion, told her it was the only way they could be together. He dumped her a month later anyway. Derek had always fucking hated him. He wishes he didn't feel so much like him right now.

He smiles sadly. He sees his tiny baby hands, whole fists wrapping around his finger at the hospital. The sight of all that beauty touches something cold inside him, warms it up, and yet there it still is, right where it always is — the awful, gnawing hunger that never gets filled and never will. The candle drawing the moth to burn itself up, to batter its wings against the flame.

Jesse would have been nine this year.

_Jesse is dead._

The moment he was told his son was dead, he couldn't understand what they meant.

He couldn't connect the dots. Because _'Jesse__' _and_ 'passed away' _and_ 'did not make it' _aren't words to him — he, as a parent, as a father — would ever want to hear. _Jesse. Dead. Gone. I'm so sorry. _He couldn't comprehend what Dr. Fraser was saying to them at the waiting room.

He had just been upstairs giving good news to his patient when an intern had summoned him with a grief-stricken look.

_"It's your son, Dr. Shepherd. _ _Jesse, he's —"_

Now, every time he gets more than three missed calls, he almost goes into a panic because it's _always _something bad_._

_How can it not be?_

It's just how the world is.

_Jesse. Dead. Gone. I'm so sorry._

There was a ringing in his ear and he heard them all in fragments.

Addison had collapsed. His sisters were in tears. His mom was quick to console him. _Oh, sweetheart._ Mark was sitting silently by himself in a corner as he used to when he wouldn't/couldn't speak as a kid.

_Jesse is dead. Your boy is dead._

_Jesse Christopher Montgomery Shepherd is dead. Your son is dead._

The next morning, he kept repeating it in the hopes that sooner or later, his mind would begin to recognise it as truth.

_The milk has gone off, and Jesse Shepherd is dead._

_I'm late to the hospital, and Jesse Shepherd is dead._

_I need coffee, and Jesse Shepherd is dead._

_I feel like I'm going insane, and Jesse Shepherd is dead._

_My son is dead. My son is dead. My son is dead. My son is dead._

Nothing made it feel any more real, but he repeated it anyway._ Jesse is dead. My son is dead. _His therapist had thought it would help. _My son is dead. My son is dead. My son is dead. _Because that's what Derek does, these days. He too goes to therapy, for all the good it does him_ (none at all, thank you very much)_. He buys milk. He goes to work. He's polite to strangers even when he feels like screaming.

He goes visit _the_ grave — and that's how he thinks of it — _the_ grave, _not _Jesse's grave. It's a small distinction, but it's one of the ones Derek is determined to hold onto. His own private rebellion against reality.

He goes to the grave, and he talks. Talks as though Jesse can hear him, and maybe he can. He likes to pretend that his son is listening to him. That he's hiding behind a tree, so sometimes he reads to him all the books he didn't have the chance to, sometimes he tells Jesse about the insufferable old woman at the hospital who keeps coming back, convinced she has cancer no matter how many times he tells her it's only a headache and perhaps she should lay off the late-night WebMD searches in the library computer.

He goes there almost every day after work until he wakes up in the cemetery as rain starts pouring down or the cemetery watcher telling him to hit it. He is being _sane_ and _normal_ and fully _functional_ in both body and mind, he is.

It's all fine, _thanks_, so the world can bloody well allow him this one small indulgence.

It's his child, for crying out loud, and he's all alone six feet underground.

Derek is _good_ and _sane_ and _fine_ until one day he admits to himself that he isn't. He is none of those things. He is _bored_. Really, truly bored and not fine, and if he has to sit through one more day of _fine_ patient telling him about their nothing-ailments — if he has to sit through one more night of quietude with his wife, he is going to lose it.

* * *

People commented that he was doing better.

_"You look well, Dr. Shepherd," _a doctor told him one afternoon._ "Glad to see you're moving on_," as though_ 'moving on' _is what means_ 'better'_. As if it was even possible.

_No_, the truth is that Derek has not moved on, can never move on, but he has a _purpose_ now. He has something to do besides sit at home and work and think about all the ways his life will never be the same ever again.

He shakes his head. He doesn't like to think of Jesse often because if he does he'll definitely go insane like his mother.

He's in needs of a drink, so he starts up the car again.

* * *

The first time he didn't come home without calling was a few months after Jesse's death.

Addison had hit him right as he walked in. He almost wasn't expecting it if it weren't for the fire burning in her every step.

He didn't really see what she did. Because it wasn't the blunt force of a punch that he felt. And it wasn't a sharp crackle of skin against skin or a shove. But he was stumbling against the wall, hand against his cheek in shock more than anger for his wounded ego, nevertheless. He walked right back out, fearing that if he didn't, he would do something he'd regretted.

It was in his car as he drove off that he even noticed he was bleeding. The band from her wedding ring must have broken the skin of his right cheek. And he subsequently spent the next two hours alone in his car cleaning up the cut after stopping by at the store for bandages and a six-pack and all the while hitting the decline button as Addison blew up his phone.

When he finally went back home two hours later, it was with a stinging, bruised cheek. Walking up the steps hesitantly to the brownstone, he thought of what was going to happen. He didn't know. But what he did know was that he didn't want to have to fight with her tonight. He was really tired and he just wanted to go to bed.

_Sleep._

He opened the door and then — _nothing_; she wasn't waiting up for him, wasn't awaiting to continue what she had started, wasn't going to hit him again. That had not gone at all how he had envisioned in his head. He was expecting the exact opposite.

Derek was licking his metaphorical wounds while tending to his physical wounds properly in the bathroom when he heard a knock at the door.

It was Addison.

She was standing there wearing bruised knuckles and a look of grim determination.

What happened next, well, it was pretty much exactly what he had envisioned. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him forward for a bruising and punishing kiss. His lip was split from the blow of the hit, or something like that, and it broke open anew under the onslaught. Their kiss was red-tinted and tasted of copper, and when she pulled away panting, there was a smear of blood on her chin.

He reached out and brushed it away with a thumb. The gesture was unhurried. He could feel the slow drag of dried up blood against the pad of his thumb, and Addison watched as he brought his bloodied finger to his mouth and licked it clean.

Something hungry stirred in her eyes, and then she was on him again, shoving the hand aside to replace it with her mouth. He cleaned the rest of the blood off her lips with his tongue, then bloodies her anew.

They were shedding clothes at a frantic pace, ripping them off and scattering them on the floor. He just barely retains the presence of mind to shut the door amid the clamour in his head shouting for skin and Addison and more.

It was just another kind of fight. Another version for their usual repertoire. But this was red of tooth and claw, drenched in pain and anger, soaked in the loneliness of the last two months. He paused when she uncovered the skin of his back, her touch was tender for a moment, skimming feather-light over his spine, and it was the wrong thing to do, because he winced, more at ease with the coldness of her fingers than the pity.

She seemed to understand. She turns him around and shoves him onto his back, pressing the evidence of his long absence into the carpet. The rug burn felt like a benediction. Then there's wetness and gentleness, and a hot, insistent heat enveloping him entirely.

She moved against him hard, and the sun had gone down a long time ago. But they're both bathed in fiery orange like the dying light of the afternoon, and the house was silent except for the slap of skin on skin. He cries out, and she muffled his voice with a hand, another hand curled around his throat. His vision went fuzzy around the edges as her hand pushed into his carotid on every thrust. Speckles danced in front of his eyes.

He came with a muffled yell into her shoulder and hissed as he felt her bite down.

He closed his eyes and stayed, after. She went still, hovering above him and him still inside her.

He didn't move, and neither did she.

It was a long while, long after they've caught their breath and their sweat had dried, long after he had started to surreptitiously wriggle at the uncomfortable stickiness between them, that Addison slowly, slowly turn to collapse next to him. She turned her face away so he couldn't see, but her shoulders shudder, and her cheeks were wet where they were pressed against his chest.

He brought his arms up to curl protectively around Addison, and he pressed a kiss into the top of her hair.

And they didn't talk about it again.

...

After that, things were fine. _It's all fine_, as Addison would say. And if they didn't talk about it, well, that was just their way.

Except it wasn't _fine_ in all ways, just some ways. There was anger there, lurking around the edges of their interactions, and sometimes it came out in a careless word here, a gesture there.

Derek is adept enough to read Addison's body language, but not enough to be able to stymie the resentment behind it. He doesn't know what to say or do to fix it. Sometimes he gets it right — bringing her tea earned him a soft smile that seemed to almost rewind the clock two years. Other times he gets it very, very wrong, and she doesn't speak to him for days.

This particular evening, he had forgotten to call her. He had been good, calling and leaving her a message every time he would be late to come home, as promised, but then, time got the best of him and he forgot because of course, he never really learned from the first time. No, but really, he coming home shouldn't be the highlight of her day.

By the time he got home, most, if not all, of the lights in the surrounding brownstones had gone out, and their light upstairs was dimmed as well. Derek climbed the stairs, avoiding the one that squeaked. He hung his coat, peeled off his clothes, and climbed into bed beside Addison.

Anyone else might have thought Addison was sleeping. She was lying perfectly still, curled away from the door, facing the wall. Even in the dark, Derek could feel the tension radiating from her body. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't," she said, voice ragged and harsh.

He jerked his hand back. He waited. Waited so long that his eyes adjusted to the darkness, so he could see as well as hear Addison's chest rise and fall with her too-quick breaths.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked at last.

Derek blinked in the dark. "No," he lied, just to keep the argument short and sweet.

She laughed, and it was a pained sound. "Of course, you don't."

He hesitated. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Goodnight, Derek."

He laid awake staring at the ceiling until Addison's breathing evened out in sleep. He got up and looked at photos in the album until his chest ached with the now-dreadful memories.

* * *

_"How have you been sleeping?"_

_"I haven't. I don't."_

_"What do you do, then, when you can't sleep?"_

_"I go out."_

_"Out?"_

_"Coyness doesn't suit you, Dr. Larson."_

Derek starts drinking a lot. At first to dull the pain of his wounded heart, then to dull the pain of everything else. Addison disapproves, he can tell, but she doesn't stop him from doing it. She merely stocks up their pantry with more bottles of whisky, brands far more expensive than anything he would have bought for himself. And he has invested in a few.

He's not an alcoholic. He's not like Amy. He's not an addict and he sure as fuck doesn't have a problem. He just chooses to drink, you see. He can stop _if_ he wants to and it wouldn't be difficult; he just doesn't want to, that's the thing. _Why_ _would he? _He's not exactly falling apart. He never gets plastered. His job is not failing. The alcohol isn't destroying his professional life and it definitely can't be destroying his personal life any more than it already has been on its own. He wouldn't dare drink at work. Au contraire, he might just be a better surgeon with a glass of whiskey in him.

Of course, but he would never.

_"You seek out sexual liaisons, then."_

_"You make it sound like there's money involved."_

_"Is there?"_

_"I don't sleep with prostitutes if that's what you're implying."_

_"You seem offended. Tell me, would that be worse than cheating on your wife?"_

_"I — I don't know, okay? I was just ... I needed to ... feel ... I was coping. I'm still coping."_

His therapist says that _adventures_ are merely attempts in seeking approval from others, lonely people often use sex as a means for _'filling the void' _in their lives. Since people tend to be suckers for flattery, there is a thrill when they're noticed and liked by the members of the opposite sex.

He thinks it's all _mumbo-jumbo_ and psychology once again has proved itself to be the doofus of the sciences.

Addison would definitely have a laugh when he tells her that later.

...

He doesn't have a favourite bar. The idea of being a regular anywhere, of being a familiar face with a predictable drink makes him feel too much of an alcoholic, which he isn't, but if he did have a usual bar, Callahan's would be it. It's a repurposed tackle shop with a steeply sloped roof and awful, all-over green paint that somehow manages to be more charming than ramshackle. It must have fit in the neighbourhood at some point, but now it's a misfit, dwarfed by its neighbours to either side.

Derek can relate.

It's a Thursday night, so there isn't a huge turnout. Something classic rock is playing over the stereo, the words hard to pick out over the din of voices and the clinking of glasses. He prefers it when there are fewer people. He doesn't care for crowds, hates the sticky press of too many voices, too many cluttered wants butting up against his own.

He orders a bottle of something cheap and domestic, something that his grandpa used to drink because he's feeling nostalgic like that tonight, and settles into one of the pleather barstools to wait.

The first beer goes down quick. He's hit the bottom before he knows it, the brown bottle turning amber in the light. He orders another and nurses it more slowly, turning to watch the crowd of people around him. There's a group of college kids playing darts in back, all of them chattering and laughing. A high, bright peal of laughter rings out when someone misses a shot. Across the bar two men are having a heated discussion, brows furrowed, faces animated. One of them gestures with his glass, sloshing something red and sweet onto the floor. Neither of them notices the bartender glaring daggers in their direction before she sighs and turns to take another order with a smile plastered on her face.

Derek is still considering her fake smile when a woman slides into the vacant stool on his right.

"This seat taken?"

He considers pointing out that they both clearly know that it isn't, but makes an open gesture with his hand instead. "Be my guest."

He takes another long pull of his drink before turning to look at the woman beside him. He drags his eyes up her body and doesn't make any show of hiding it.

The woman is pretty, petite, with a head of thick, blonde hair and a body she clearly looks after. When Derek meets her eyes, they're impossibly blue, and she smiles at him, warm and open.

She nods toward his beer. "Can I get you another?"

It takes him a split second to make his decision. He can't let her buy him a drink. That's not how it works. Then again, it's the twenty-first century, so he drains the last of his beer and sets the empty bottle on the lacquered counter with a clink. "Sure." He holds out his hand. "I'm Derek."

"Nice to meet you, Derek. I'm Meredith."

_Meredith._

It takes Meredith a few tries to catch the bartender's eye — not very assertive, he notes — but she finally does. She leans over the counter, raising her voice to be heard above the din. "What're you having?"

"Two Budweisers, please."

"You don't have to have what I'm having, you know." Derek nods at the two sweating beers the bartender has set on the counter in front of them. "C'mon, that's not your drink." He looks at the bartender and winks.

She raises an eyebrow and pauses, bottle opener poised over the one beer that remains unopened, apparently entertained enough to indulge his little game.

Meredith laughs. "Alright, alright, you caught me." To the bartender, "Just the one Budweiser and an IPA, please."

"Sure thing."

She grabs a pint glass from beneath the bar and turns around, raising her eyebrows at Derek in a way that says_ 'go get 'em tiger' _as soon as her back is to Meredith. She comes back with the IPA, and Meredith puts it on her tab.

"Cheers," she says, lifting her glass.

"To a good night." Derek clinks the lip of his bottle against it and drinks.

There's a little bit of foam clinging to the top of Meredith's lip, cream on tan, and for the barest moment, Derek thinks of licking it off. She's young, easy on the eyes, and she clearly wants him to make a move. So, he stares and stares, almost peeking into rudeness until the moment fizzles into nothingness, and she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. It should be a charming gesture, probably, but it's off-putting instead. The lack of refinement puts him in mind of Addison — more specifically, her absence, and how she would've used a napkin instead.

"So, the drink — how'd you know?" Meredith asks, stealing him from his thoughts.

"Lucky guess." he doesn't want to talk about his work, what he does. That's not why he came here, not why he goes out. "So, _Meredith_," he uses the woman's name and leans in, flicking his tongue out along his lip, gratified by the way her eyes track the movement. "What brings you out on a Thursday night?"

He slips into it like an old glove, the easy patter of conversation, the deft bob and weave of flirtation. It's an old game, one he's been playing since his college days, and one he knows well. He touches her wrist lightly and lets himself smile when he sees the way she leans into him. He can be someone else for a little while, someone who does this — who talks and smiles, flirts and laughs. Someone who hasn't smelled the burnt curl of human flesh on the daily_ (it has an acrid and_ charcoal-like smell, almost sickly sweet, similar to a burnt _pork roast) _or seen the twisted limbs of a little boy who was struck by a car, or heard the cry of despair from a parent when they see that their child is being worked as they code.

Meredith answers and Derek lets it wash over him.

The time passes quickly. Before long, they're both being ushered out of the bar.

"Alright, you two, closing time," the bartender says. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

When Meredith goes to the bathroom, he covers both of their tabs and tells the bartender to keep it hush-hush.

They adjourn to the parking lot, where Derek stares up at the stars for one dizzying moment, tipping his head back and letting himself get lost in the vastness. Meredith lights up a cigarette, and Derek breathes deep, the smell of nicotine blurring together with the sharp scent of petrichor. It rained while they were inside, and everything is covered in a slick, glittering sheen.

He waits until Meredith finishes her cigarette, flicking it to the asphalt and crushing it underfoot. They're standing close together, faces illuminated by the neon glow of the bar behind them. He runs his hands down Meredith's cheek and leans in, closing the distance between them with a soft, insistent press of his lips. The kiss isn't bad. It's boozy and tastes like smoke, with just enough tongue. But it isn't what he wants.

Derek isn't a stranger to non-committal sex. Contrary to what people assume of him, he isn't that good of a husband. He is inherently flawed, petty and a fool and he's been doing this long before Addison slept with Mark. He has fucked more women than he can count on both hands — but that isn't what he wants tonight.

Meredith's hands on his back make him think inexplicably of Addison, and that's something Derek just isn't prepared to deal with tonight. He pulls back abruptly. He can see the question in her icy blue eyes, the quiet resignation.

"Ah, I'm sorry," he says. He is genuinely sorry. She is a very nice lady. "Any other night —" he doesn't finish that thought, "I can pay you back for the drinks."

"No," Meredith says, pulling back. She tucks her hair behind her ears and shrugs. "No, that's okay. I had a nice time talking with you, Derek. Have a good night."

"You too."

Meredith walks away into the cool night, melding into the odd sepia-toned landscape of phosphorescent light on the pavement. He does a good job of playing at unaffected, at pretending this was no harm, no foul, but Derek can't help noticing the frown, the dejected slope of her shoulders, the bitter burn in the back of his throat that's only partially his own.

He's about to call it a night and head out too, empty-handed to an equally empty bed when he pats his pockets and realises he's missing his wallet.

"Fuck."

He walks back into the bar and tries the door, relieved to find that it's open. The music is different now. The stereo system plays a punk band he doesn't recognise, cranked up loud. The stools are all lined up atop tables and counters. The bartender is sweeping with her back to the door, and Derek thinks how easy it would be to walk up behind her and snap her neck. He blinks, tired, and drags a hand over his face.

"Excuse me."

She bops her head to the music, working her broom into the corner of the room, under the table legs.

"Excuse me!"

She doesn't look up, so he crosses the room and touches her shoulder.

She jumps, whirling around. "Jesus Christ, you scared me."

"Sorry. I, uh, think I lost my wallet."

He sees recognition settle over her features. "I've got you." She leans the broom against the nearest table and disappears behind the bar. "Catch," she says, tossing the wallet his way.

He tries, but four beers have shot his depth perception to hell. The black billfold glances off his fingers and tumbles onto the newly swept floor. Derek picks it up and dusts it off, tucking it into his pocket.

"Thanks," he says. "Goodnight."

"Whatever happened to your Juliet? She waiting for you outside?"

He chuckles. "Yeah, uh. Turns out she wasn't my Juliet after all."

She whistles, picking up her broom and finishing where she left off. "Tough luck for her. She liked you, I could tell."

Derek's mouth pulls into a pinched smile. "Yeah, she probably dodged a bullet."

"Someone's down on himself."

He laughs softly. "That's usually the case."

She pauses her sweeping, leaning against the broom. "Hey. I don't usually do this, but I'm just going to be a few more minutes. Do you want to come back to my place?"

She's pretty. She's young. Her name tag says — he can't see what it says.

Mostly she's there, and Derek just feels so itchy in his skin.

"Yeah — sure."

* * *

_ **Thank you for reading!** _


	13. 2006 : present : fight sickness with sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened on that day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. What happened after? What happened before? Years before his wife and nest friend betrayed him?
> 
> A Maddek FanFiction. My take on the life/relationship of the trio in NYC.
> 
> A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a somewhat twisty, twisted plot.
> 
> Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy.
> 
> Twisted and Dark Addek.
> 
> Addison/Derek/Mark  
#Maddek #Addek #Maddison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hear more from Derek.

**Unhinged**

_ **(AddisonandDerekandMark)** _

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**2006 : present**

_ **fight sickness with sickness** _

_"In your life, you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do_ _."_

—_ C. S. Lewis_

* * *

_"_Come on_, please."_

Derek murmured these words to himself, again and again, as he tried to shake Addison awake. The bright rays of sunshine making their way over the horizon made his head throb with a blinding migraine, and his cheek sent sharp waves of pain through his body as he attempts to shove three fingers down her throat.

"Please, please, please, _Addison_."

He remembered her telling him about how she used to do that in high school and in college too, though less frequently, before she met Savvy, who had helped her through the nasty habit.

He felt as though his lungs barely had enough air to sustain his own faintly beating heart, still, he pushed his fingers further into the back of her throat, alternating between shoving and pressing his fingers down at the back of her tongue. He felt light-headed with the effort, the shock of finding Addison in the bathroom on the edge, in between life and death — it wasn't the first but with an empty bottle of pills was.

_Come on, please._

Time passed, and Derek was just on the verge of a hysterical fit of panic, thinking it was too late. But then —

She choked out a vomit.

A muffled groan.

Steady streams of bitterly pungent fluid poured out of her swollen mouth, a mixture of little white pills, saliva and bile dripping down her chin. Addison's eyes, turned to look at him; sun reflecting in the light blue of her irises.

Derek knew, then and there, that he would never be able to do this again.

* * *

The traffic light screams bright green and all Derek remembers is his son's favourite flavour of ice cream. _Mint chocolate chip._ He remembers Jesse begging for it even in the dead of winter, and Addison soundly refusing him.

"_No, Jesse. It's too cold outside."_

Derek had heard it through the walls of their home. Her _tut tut _and sending him away and his large, elongated whine. Then, like a sudden halt of an orchestra, there was a cut-off of the groan as if at that very second the boy realised there was another option.

He had listened carefully from his study upstairs. Addison's methodical footsteps: slowish and soft in the kitchen, padded by her plush house slippers. They grew further away and closer were tinier footsteps, quick and bare against the lacquered floors and the staircase, the fourth one that always creaked even under just eighty pounds of weight.

He remembers turning in his chair from his desk just in time to see that red curls and pale face peer in around the jamb. The tiny fingertips that held steady there. From behind him, the mid-afternoon sun streamed in through the blinds, illuminating his son's face in stripes. Dust motes floating before him, like infinitesimal galaxies between them.

Jesse had looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, his face broke out in a grin. Derek could not help but smile back, and he counted himself lucky to have Jesse as his boy.

_"Alright. C'mon. Go get your coat and mittens and put on your boots. Let's go take Gus for a walk."_

And they did. Jesse had gotten dressed in lightening speed and was waiting for him with Gus' leash in hand as he goes to tell Addison that they were going to take the dog for a walk.

She wasn’t stupid; she knew what they were up.

_"You're spoiling him, Derek. Now, he’s never going to listen to me because he has you to let him have whatever he wants."_

_"He's a kid, Addie. He's five. Let him live a little. Didn't you used to do the same thing as a child?"_

_"That was different. The Captain was bribing me with ice cream because he was screwing his secretaries."_

_"Okay. But, pretty please."_

_"Fine. Just one scoop, though."_

That was the last day off he had that he spent with his son.

When ice cream was smeared across Jesse’s mouth and chin, when he was giggling at how they had fooled his mother, Derek leaned in as though he were telling him a secret, and told him that she won't be fooled any longer if the evidence were all over his mouth.

Jesse had only giggled then, and wiped his mouth with a tissue, legs swinging happily as they sit on the bench.

His phone begins vibrating aggressively and Derek's eyes are wet. He wipes them against his shoulder and looks up to see that the light has turned red again.

_His fists bunched into the fabric of his jeans. He looked at his knees, tears obstructed slightly by the edges of his glasses. Then pattering, softly, on his knuckles. "I don't want anything else but justice for my son. For Jesse."_

_.._

_"I'd never get to see my son again!" Derek shouted, his mouth caving in. "It wasn't an accident! Don't tell me it was an accident!" He pushed the heel of one hand to the corner of his mouth, his cheek, to swipe away a tear and saliva._

_.._

_"Does it ever stop? ... The pain?" He pressed his palm fully to his mouth and shuts his eyes, spilling hot tears across his face. Into his hand he said something which is badly slurred and muffled, "You're tearing my guts out, Addison."_

The car is quiet again, save Derek's soft crying.

* * *

_"These people that you sleep with — do you desire them?"_

_"That's usually how it works," Derek said, fighting down the urge to fidget in his seat._

_"You want something from them — to get close to them, to be transported outside of yourself for a time. Escapism. You crave a distraction. But do you desire them sexually?"_

_Derek sighed. He's never actually thought about it — has tried pretty hard to avoid thinking about it, in fact. "I don't _not_ want them. It's ... complicated."_

_"That's not a very satisfying answer."_

_Dr. Larson actually sounded surprised and Derek, in turn, finds some petty measure of delight in denying him._

_"It wasn't a very satisfying question."_

Thursday turns into Friday, and Derek pulls back into his driveway in the wee hours of dawn. The world is softly lit in tones of grey around him, and his breath comes in little puffs of fog where his window is rolled down. Everything is still and quiet, and he breathes in, savouring the air and letting it sting his nose. He's always liked being awake when the rest of the world isn't.

His head is throbbing with the promise of a hangover to come, and he has his sights set on a hot shower and a hotter cup of coffee, in that order. He takes another deep breath and steels himself before getting out of the car. The slam of his car door is loud in the silence, setting off an answering string of barks from the neighbours' dogs.

He frowns and is very much surprised to find Addison sitting on the couch by the fire. He checks the clock on the mantle — it's almost four in the morning. A prickle of something that might be shame and might be suspicion noses at the edges of his tired mind.

Addison seems just as shocked to see him, just as surprised to have her solitude disturbed. She looks like she'd been interrupted mid-conversation.

"Hey. Why're you still up?"

She stares at him, wary. She holds very still until he comes closer, eyeing him up like she's trying to figure him out. The corner of her mouth twitches upward, then. "I ... I couldn't sleep."

Derek is tired. The feel of someone else on his skin — someone else's fluids, the echo of someone else's pleasure — is starting to grow uncomfortable. He just wants a shower.

"You smell like ... _jasmine_."

She knows.

He's not in the mood for the clever wordplay that marks his relationship with Addison. He watches the play of firelight across each log, each individual ridge is thrown into sharp relief by the shadows. She watches him with flat black eyes, slow and unblinking. Her nose twitches, and it's almost an invitation. Derek goes and walks to the sofa, immediately missing the distance between them as the warmth rushes in, warming his skin with something akin to shame and guilt.

"I'm going to take a shower."

He closes the bathroom door to the sounds of Addison puttering around in the living room, clinking of glasses and the dull echoes of her voice vibrates through the whole house as she continues to talk to someone that isn't there.

* * *

Above the marbled twin sinks is a grand, silver-edged mirror that reflects to one standing in it all that is behind them and to either sides. Derek's hair is but wild dark curls and his eyes are tired. Yet he takes his time in front of it; languidly removes his shirt, unties the belt from his waist. From outside, he hears a car down the street, which is odd because it's well past midnight and suburbia Rye.

Standing bare upon the cold tile, he sighs. Places his hands in the mass of his hair, pushes it back, up, out of his eyes. He tugs at his cheeks to pull taut the skin beneath his eyes. Rubs at the stubble upon his chin.

_I have to go take a shower so I can't tell if I'm crying or not._

The shower is squared and surrounded by frosted glass. He stays in until the water turns tepid, and all the while, he attempts not to cry. He thinks he has enough fortitude to avoid it; and knows that giving in to weak urges will only slow his pace when he does return to his tasks.

"You did this to yourself," he mumbles into his wet hands.

The words ring true and not without a degree of self-loathing. It is unequivocally his fault, yet can he say he is not in turn, in some way, blessed by this strange outcome? He had imagined something like this when he was but in his early twenties, drifting through days heavy with the oppressive and oft-sickening aromas of Arabica and Robusta, the ever-present hum of conversation, machines whirring and acoustic music sifting down from overhead speakers. He imagined a house much like this, wide and deep and too big but all he deserved, all he could ever want. _Family_. He imagined going to work, greeting neighbours a pleasant morning and coming home to his wife and children. Maybe even going over to a neighbours' house for dinner, or having them come over. But Addison wanted a brownstone in the city, in Upper East Side.

They settled for Upper West, overlooking Central Park. But now, they're here.

Derek turns the water off when he is drenched in cold. He shivers stepping onto a towel strewn to the floor. Sees himself through the dissipating steam on the mirror. Cheeks red, eyes, the same colour. The sodden line of hair below his navel.

He squints, and sees beyond himself. Into the mirror, into the window that is behind him at the left of the shower. And over the ravine of grass and trees, to the bathroom window of the neighbouring house in which stands a stiff shadow, unmoving and shaped unmistakably like a person.

If someone is really watching him right now, he won't even march over there in the morning, because it feels good to be _seen_ again.

* * *

_Dr. Larson was in his element here, in his domain, leg crossed parallel to the floor, a flash of pale, bony ankle visible where it rested on his impeccably clad knee. "Tell me, Derek, what do you get out of these encounters?"_

_Something angry and dark stirs in him at the thought of divulging pieces of himself to his therapist. He smiled, pinched and self-deprecating. "That part isn't terribly complicated. Orgasms, mostly? For me and for them."_

_"You desire closeness?"_

_"Not really? I mean, touching and being touched — that's nice, but it's not really what it's about."_

_"And what is it about?"_

Derek feels like a new man by the time he steps out of the shower, wrapped in clean clothes and still towelling his hair dry as he steps into the kitchen. The smell of coffee hits him as soon as he crosses the threshold, rich and strong. And he's very much thankful for Addison. He might thank her later. Taking the cup in his hands, it's still steaming in his cup, and it tastes like heaven itself, its rich bitterness cut by just enough sugar. Derek smiles despite himself.

He is only a little surprised to find Addison waiting in bed by the time he gets upstairs. She's propped against their pillows, wearing the reading glasses he had bought her. She's engrossed in whatever she's reading, enough that Derek has the chance to study her face for a minute, tracking the play of light over her high cheekbones, the soft slope of her mouth.

She's not fooling him.

She looks up and smiles, closing the book and setting it on the nightstand. She carefully folds her reading glasses and sets them back in their case. He forces a smile and gets into bed with a sigh, letting the last bit of tension bleed out of him.

"Did you have a pleasant time with your _friend_?" she asks boldly.

He twists around to look at her, propping on a elbow. "Yes." he sighs, reaching out to tuck a lock of red hair behind her ear. "I did."

"Good."

Addison's brow furrows. She opens her mouth. Closes it again. Then, brings her hand back up to his shoulder and gives him a little push.

"Roll over. I'll rub your back."

Derek goes, hiding his face in a pillow that smells like their shared shampoo. He tries not to think of what Addison won't promise him. Tries not to hate her for it. Fails on both counts.

She tries to tug his shirt up but can't get it further than his arms without cooperation, which he isn't currently inclined to give. She is unbothered. She simply smooths the shirt back down and begins running her hands over him through the fabric, long strokes made of light touches that have him letting go of tension he didn't know he was holding.

He turns his head to the side so he can breathe, and Addison digs her thumb into something that makes a tingling numbness radiate through his entire back. He groans aloud, and she does it again and again. She works up the back of his neck, kneading and squeezing the muscles there and making him sink further into the mattress. She threads her fingers through his hair and pulls from the roots with steady pressure that stays on just the right side of pain.

"Releases endorphins," she murmurs, and he can only sigh in agreement.

She reaches the top of his head and works her way back down until his whole body is singing with the simple pleasure of it. It wipes away the unease that's been plaguing him, like houses swept away in a flood, and he wonders if that isn't Addison's answer after all.

"You can't promise not to hurt me, but you can make me feel good, is that it?"

She doesn't answer except to walk her fingers along the curve of his spine. She doesn't need to. He can see right through her — he's always been able to understand her, see her, even when he wishes he couldn't.

_"It's about ..." Derek closed his eyes and took himself back to all those frenzied nights with a clawing need under his skin. The way he got so hot in his own skin, shackled by his bones, on nights when everything is pressing in too close. Jittery agitation for the cure. "It's about getting outside of my house. Outside of my life. About having somewhere to sleep for the night, anywhere that isn't my bed." He met Dr. Larson's eyes, then. "Somewhere safe, where I can't get hurt."_

_"You don’t feel safe with your wife?"_

_He huffed a laugh like broken glass, small and jagged, destined to pierce the unsuspecting. "No. It’s not that. It’s ... the things she does. It hurts me."_

_"Do you hurt your wife?"_

_He contemplates, frowning as he thinks of the right answer. Yes or no. "No. Not physically."_

_"What do you think you both get out in hurting each other?"_

_"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"_

_"Avoidance of pain isn't the same as pleasure."_

_"Isn't it?"_

He sighs and rolls back onto his back, catching Addison's wrist in the process. He tugs her toward him, and she goes. He pulls her until they're lying face to face, pressed close so they can feel each other from toes to hips. He suddenly feels very sober.

He brings her hand up to his face and turns it so he can study the veins that runs through it, the wrist decorated with thin white lines — the scars of fights won and lost. Long, articulate fingers that end in blunt, trimmed fingernails. He brings it to his mouth and presses the sharp point of a canine tooth lightly into the pad of one finger. Surgeon's hands, musician's hands. _Killer's_ hands. Doctors are essentially killers, too. _You save a life and you take a life. _He presses a kiss to the pulse beating inside her wrist, fragile and human.

Addison watches him, rapt.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks again.

"Because you've had a very long day," she says.

It's not an answer. Not a real answer.

Derek sighs and threads their fingers together.

* * *

He is content in their life together. Mostly content.

A casual observer would think they aren't the type to compromise, but they are. They do.

Okay, maybe he is just somewhat content. _Seventy-thirty percent._

Their entire life together is predicated on compromise, on the ebb and flow of giving and taking.

He turns a blind eye when he hears her conversing through their walls, or sees her set another place at the dinner table when there's clearly only two of them in the house. Over the dining table, he raises his brows and lifts a mocking toast to Addison, who smiles like the cat who ate the canary as she taps through the flaky crust with her fork. And she sighs when he comes home with yet another dog, but she says nothing, and a new dog bed shows up in the house a few days later.

He has always loved dogs and Jesse _did_, too. Gus loved Jesse and Jesse loved Gus. Gus was but a puppy when they first got him. They were as brothers. Gus still waits for Jesse at door after all these years, thinking Jesse would come back home from preschool.

The dogs aren't allowed on the bed — _fine_ — and Derek doesn't want to listen in on Addison's _'conversations'_ with whomever she talks to.

It works. They compromise.

The one thing Addison had not been willing to compromise on is Derek's drinking habit. He'd picked it up in the years after they were forced apart due to fate and circumstances, a time when he still had God to trust in. Because that's how he thinks of it in his head — not when_ 'Addison was institutionalised'_ and not even when_ 'Jesse died'_ — just, before.

In those years, he drank too much. But he still wouldn't call himself an alcoholic, not so much as slowly sinking into it, to be honest.

One drink after dinner turned into three or four. Addison was mostly working to avoid him when she's home, and he was avoiding coming back home altogether.

He'd needed it, for a while. Loneliness, to be alone. The chance to get other people out of his head so he could sort through what was them and what was him. It worked, or it kind of did. He found a way to get everyone out of his head.

Everyone but Addison.

She was always there, no matter what. Constant as the seasons. Taking a leave from work when Addison was institutionalised, forcing his patients to vacate the premises — it only made more room for Addison and Jesse.

He was all alone for too long.

So, Derek started drinking.

He doesn't have a good excuse, but he doesn't need one. He drank because it made the part of him that was screaming all the wrongs in his life shut the fuck up, at least for a little while. It was a terrible habit and a crutch, but he had no one but his dogs that year, and his dogs didn't judge him.

"At least I'm not talking to a person that isn't here," he said to Gus, gesturing with a tumbler of whisky in his hand. He was a little shaky on his feet, and he caught himself with a hand on Gus's flank. The fur soft and plush beneath his fingers, and Derek sank his hand into it. He scratched behind the ears for good measure. "Good boy," he said. "You're a _good_ boy."

_Woof,_ Gus agreed.

He wasn't alone for long. She came back to him good as new and he thought they could finally start anew. Then, one day he heard her voice echoing through the walls and he peeked to see whom she was talking to but there was no one else but them and the dogs at home. _Cannot see what you will not._ He chose to turn the other cheek because he didn't see the harm in what she was doing. He didn't want to send her away again. She wasn't a danger to anyone or herself. She wasn't doing anything wrong. So, he _let_ her stay. It wasn't a whirlwind of romance so much as clinging to an anchor in a very long and very fucked up storm that had left him tired.

He loves her and he needs her. And she thought he would stop drinking eventually. To be fair, he did too.

He had thought the easy tide of domesticity would pull him into its current and wash away all his sharp edges — and it did, but not completely. There were still parts of him that ached for their loss, and he drank to drown them night by night, diligent as any soldier.

Addison never said two words to him about it. About the drinking or any of the rest of it. He never said why. She never asked.

They shared most things, but not everything. It felt safer that way.

He fell asleep on the couch sometimes on the bad nights, tumbler in hand, staring at the door as though Jesse might walk through it at any moment. He didn't fall asleep so much as pass out on those nights. In the morning he'd wake covered in blankets, glasses sitting neatly on the table beside him. His stomach curdled with shame in the aftermath, sour breath and pale amber whisky in a glass on the coffee table accusing him of things he'd done.

He woke up to a pair of small, angry eyes once — one of Kathleen's children, Jack_ (Addison had offered to babysit the weekend)_, staring at him with a look of confusion that gradually resolved into concern before Addison hustled him into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

"Don't tell your mom!" he shouted after them.

Kathleen would kill him if she knew.

"Do we need to talk about this, Derek?" She asked once they were alone. Her, quiet and wounded. Her, giving and kind.

Him, the mangy stray with a broken heart who misses his son and his wife.

"No," he said.

And he doesn't stop drinking, but he does stop doing it in the living room.

He does start hiding it better. And he's still not an alcoholic.

* * *

Derek had been skeptical about having a beach day. But he did suggest for them to go out together for some fresh air, for a change of pace and scenery, and the beach was where she wanted to go.

Being out in public with Addison still makes him nervous because any little thing could set her mood off. Sometimes when they get back home, she'll be a whole different person than she was before they left.

And right now, she's lovely.

_Love._

It's such a strange, common word for what they are to each other, inadequate and boring, but he looks at Addison, sees her quirk a puzzled smile in his direction, and he knows it to be true.

_Love._

Huh. Go figure.

The beach isn't deserted yet. The beaches here never really are, even during winters, but they tend to clear out as the sun sinks below the horizon. Tonight, it's quiet and peaceful beyond the occasional peal of ringing laughter from the kids smoking pot further down the shore. The wind carries the pungent, sweet scent of burning marijuana along with little snatches of their conversation. They work at some place called _‘The Sea Ridge’_, apparently, and their boss is a real asshole.

Also, all the young families have already gone home, loading sandy, sunburnt kids into cars waiting to carry them elsewhere — _and_ _thank goodness for that, nothing to remind them of what they're missing out on_.

_Jesse loved going to the beach._

He tips his head back and inhales the salted air, slitting his eyes against the vibrant orange of the setting sun. He opens them again when he feels a light touch on his hand, Addison's fingers brushing his.

"What are you thinking of?" she asks.

Derek lets his head loll against her shoulder and speaks without bothering to open his eyes. This is new between them too.

_Trust. Forgiveness. Kindness._

It's young and frail, but it grows a little every day. Sometimes it goes ten steps backwards and she'd push him away. They water it and feed it little chips of honesty, all the parts of them they can bear to spare.

Well, some days are better than others.

"No one but us here," he says. He grins, and it stretches the edges of his scar from where she'd thrown a vase at him in their last fight, healed and filled in with a shiny, pink layer of tissue — that's new too. It's still raw. Still tender.

He feels the ghost of violence and pain with every smile, and the poetry of it makes him smile wider, ripping the nerve endings and making them scream.

He sits up. Picks up his can of beer _(It's illegal to drink on the beach, but who's going to stop them?)_ and frowns when he finds it empty of everything but sand. "Your eyes glow like this, you know."

"Is that so?"

Addison sits with her knees drawn up and her elbows resting on top of them. Her hair is tousled with wind and sea salt, and there's a cherry flush painted across the bridge of her nose, along the tops of her cheekbones. There's a freckle near the corner of her eye that Derek wants to taste.

"They're astonishing."

She looks so human like this, so imperfect and solid and touchable that Derek just wants to sink his hands into it and tear. He wants to spread her out and roll around in the viscera of her, every impossible bit of it.

"In what way?"

Addison's eyes crinkle when she smiles. When she really smiles, with perfect teeth that make her look happy and feral.

"So clear," he says, "So cold."

"You think I'm cold?"

"I think you want to be."

"So what am I?"

"_Lovely_," he murmurs.

"Prosaic, for you."

"Simple, because you prefer it."

"You don't."

"You don't care what I want," he says again. She bites her lip. She used to care. "I want to be able to care. To trust you."

"So do I, Derek."

It makes him feel too much to look at her when they get like this — open, honest, like spreading their entrails out to the sun — impossibly together after all they've done to and for and against each other. It's better taken in small sips; there's time for more later, so Derek looks back at the water, the vast, inky expanse of the Pacific putting thousands of miles between them and everything else.

Improbably, he thinks of his grandfather.

He says it aloud. There's no real reason not to, no secrets here at the edge of the world.

_Nothing to separate you and me._

"Did I ever tell you about my grandpa?"

"Maternal or paternal?" she asks without missing a beat.

There's a keen interest in it, a sharp delight at being given the knowledge that there's still more to learn. More of Derek, more of each other. He is happy to provide.

"Maternal," he offers, a bloodless sacrifice. "I only met him a few times. He and my dad didn't get along, but I think my dad tried for a while. Grandpa wanted Mom to marry a lawyer or a doctor, I guess. And my dad wasn't any of that."

_Well, he married a doctor._

He turns his head to look, and he sees what he was expecting — Addison watching him with patient interest, swallowing each new piece of Derek's history whole.

"We stayed with them for a few weeks in the summer once. Dad was between jobs, and school was out. Amy was just born and we were a handful. It was actually — it was a lot of fun, to tell you the truth. I got so sunburned I peeled like a lizard, and when I finally went back to school in the fall, I was brown as toast."

He kicks at a spot of sand and watches a sand crab scuttle.

"It was so hot that summer — it's always fucking hot in Florida, you know — so one day, my sisters, cousins and I went outside to eat popsicles. There was a whole herd of us, and as luck would have it, there was just enough for everyone to have one. I think mine was strawberry? It was so good after yelling ourselves hoarse outside all day." he shrugs. "Only I guess there wasn't enough for everyone. We'd forgotten one of my cousins, and my grandpa was livid. But he didn't hit us or take our popsicles or anything. He just sat us all down and told us that one day we'd know how it felt to be left out." Derek laughs. "I think that was honestly worse. I walked around for years feeling like my grandpa had literally cursed me."

"It's not an unusual thing for a child to think," she says.

Derek shrugs. "He wasn't wrong."

The waves fill the silence.

"He scared the shit out of me."

He wonders what the inside of Addison's mind looks like. If she is imagining him and his cousins as they were, skinny legs and scraped knees, sticky with humidity in the Florida summer. He wonders if she imagines them at all.

He doesn't ask, and Addison doesn't offer.

He thinks of his grandpa, the gruff man he'd only met a handful of times, so few he could count them on one hand.

That's life, he thinks.

_You lose and lose and lose again._

He puts his head back again and breathes, letting the ocean fill him.

* * *

There's a little patch in the world where nothing hurts, just a small one. It's not very big — just big enough to fit two people if they squeeze together real tight. Jesse’s there too. There's honey-coloured sunlight and the soft whisper of leaves rustling in a breeze. It's warm but not too warm, soft but not too soft.

There, he meets Addison, and nothing terrible happens. Nothing more than stubbed toes and noses that bump during kisses. Pets that die and alarms that ring too soon. Kids that goes off to college and build a family of their own. Normal things. Bearable sorrows.

Love is just love, and it's never confused with pain.

They have normal fights, the kinds that people have. The kind born of comfort and familiarity that means, "_I know you_; _I see you. You're so human, and I am too."_

The fights always end, and that's the best part,

_"I'm sorry —"_

_"I love you —"_

_"I'll never —"_

It ends in a casket because all loves do, but in the meantime there are kisses. In the meantime there is love and nights curled together like the leaves of young ferns, pushing back the darkness through sheer force of will. In the meantime they bear witness.

They die when they're old. After nothing at all happens to them.

It's so much better that way, Derek thinks desperately.

But that’s not his life. That’s not his destiny. It’s a fantasy.

So much for a happy ending.

Derek inhales, inhales, and holds his breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! And let me know what you think.


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